The effect of applying case study in teaching of "diffusion- osmos- osmotic forces" in grade 9 biology lesson on the students' academic achievement and their attitude towards biology lesson

This study was conducted to investigate the efficacy of using case study to teach following biology subjects: Difusion- Osmos- Osmotic Powers in the unit ?The basic unit of organism: ?cell? to improve students? academic achievement and attitudes towards biology lesson.The Study group for the research were taken from A, B, C and D sections of the 9 graders in Habip Edip Törehan Girls? Vocational School in Eskişehir. A and C sections with 59 students in total were assigned as the control group for the study and B and D sections with 54 students in total were assigned as experimental group for the study. These assignments were done randomly. For a 5 weeks period, students in the control group were taught with the traditional methods while the students in the experimental group were taught with case study by the researcherData was collected via a biology achievement test and a students? attitude test. The students were pretested before the execution of the study and posttested after the execution of the study via the achievement test. The students were also given the attitude test before and after the execution of the study. For the analysis of the data, the average scores of the students? answers to the achievement test and attitude test were calculated, standard deviation of both tests were also calculated and these findings were used to calculate paired sample t ? test and indepent sample t - test scores. To achieve validity, factor analysis of the attitude test was calculated and the reliability of both the achievement test and the attitude test were calculated. SPSS 13.00 was used to achieve this statistical data.Findings of the statistical data showed that experimental group which were taught with case study outperformed control group which were taught with traditional methods. A .05 difference both from the results attained from the achievement test and attitude test was monitored in favor of experimental group over control group. At the end of the study, it was concluded that case study can improve students? academic achievement and also case study can improve students? attitudes towards Biology positively.