The effect of using individual and cooperative blog to enhance average and gifted students' writing performance

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact on the writing performance in Turkish lessons of 5th grade primary school level gifted and average intelligence students on the basis of teaching of writing integrated with cooperative and individual blog which is based on blended instructional design. This research is 'pretest-posttest control group design' that has been applied as an experimental study. A total of 60 5th grade students, including 30 gifted intelligence (9 in the experimental 1, 12 in the experimental 2 and 9 in the control) and 30 average intelligence (9 in the experimental 1, 12 in the experimental 2 and 9 in the control) participated in the study. In the experimental 1 students' performance individually on blog which is based on blended instructional design, in the experimental 2 students' performance cooperatively on blog which is based on blended instructional design and the control performance in face-to-face learning environment. Performance exam papers as pretest-posttest were scored with writing performance evaluation scale by 3 teachers. Assessor compliance were analyzed by Pearson's correlation analysis and a high-level positive significant corelation was found. Data were analyzed by Mann Whitney U Test. Results of the first hypothesis indicated a statistically significant difference between the writing performance of gifted students in the experimental 1 and control in favor of the experimental 1 and the second hypothesis concerning average students has the same results as well. Results of the third hypothesis indicated a statistically significant difference between the writing performance of gifted students in the experimental 2 and control in favor of the experimental 2. Results of the fourth hypothesis indicated no significant difference between the writing performance of average students in the experimental 2 and control groups. Results of the fifth hypothesis indicated a statistically significant difference between the writing performance of gifted students in the experimental 2 and experimental 1 in favor of the experimental 1 and the sixth hypothesis concerning average students has the same results as well. Results of the seventh hypothesis indicated no significant difference between the writing performance of average students in the experimental 1, experimental 2 and control and the eighth hypothesis concerning average students has the same results as well.