An evaluation of teaching practices based on the biomimicry approach in the context of primary school students' cognitive and affective characteristics

This study aims to develop instructional designs suitable for the biomimicry approach by differentiating learning outcomes in the Primary School Life Science Curriculum, and to evaluate the cognitive and affective implications of the developed instructional designs on 3rd-grade students in primary school. An embedded mixed-methods study was conducted, and a quantitative experimental model with embedded qualitative data was implemented. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, an achievement test, and semi-structured observations. In the needs analysis phase, the study sample consisted of six instructors and 11 classroom teachers. The study employed an experimental design involving a total of 57 third-grade students, 31 in the experimental group and 26 in the control group during the spring semester of the 2023–2024 academic year. The findings obtained were in line with the opinions of practicing teachers, who revealed that instructional designs based on the biomimicry approach were both interesting and effective for students and made positive contributions to their cognitive and affective development. The findings obtained from the experiment show that the experimental and control groups were similar in terms of conceptual understanding level at the beginning. Still, there was a significant increase in the knowledge level of the experimental group after the experiment. In line with the research results, it was concluded that while a statistically significant and effective change was observed in students' knowledge acquisition in the experimental group, no such change was observed in the control group.