Investigation of the change in conceptual understandings of sixth grade students through cognitive conflict-based activities

Cognitive conflict plays an important role in creating conceptual change in learning and teaching activities. In this study, it was aimed to examine the change in conceptual understanding of sixth grade students through cognitive conflict activities regarding the concepts of "fraction, decimal representation and percentage". The qualitative research method, teaching experiment, was used in the study. The participant group consisted of 14 sixth grade students. The study consisted of three stages. In the first stage, the Concrete preparation stage, students' misconceptions about the concepts of "fraction, decimal representation and percentage" were determined. In the second stage, the Cognitive Conflict-Metacognition stage, cognitive conflict-based scenarios were designed and implemented one-to-one in order to make students experience cognitive conflict and carry the concept to advanced stages. In the last stage, the Bridging stage, it was examined whether the students could use the concept efficiently through problems related to daily life. The obtained data were analyzed with content analysis and descriptive analysis. According to the results, it was determined that the students evaluated the concepts of fraction, decimal representation and percentage as if they were integers. It was concluded that cognitive conflict-based activities applied to misconceptions had a positive effect on concept change. It was observed that as the academic success level of students increased, higher levels could be reached in the concept change process. It was determined that students' complete prior knowledge about the concept was important for them to experience cognitive conflict. It was observed that concrete materials and daily life scenarios had a positive effect on students' experiencing cognitive conflict and taking the concept to advanced levels. In light of the results; it can be recommended that mathematics teachers use cognitive conflict-based activities in their lessons to create a concept change regarding the concepts of fraction, decimal representation and percentage. Key Words: concept, misconception, cognitive conflict, concept change, fraction, decimal notation, percentage