The effect of science teaching supported with digital content on academic achievement, attitude towards the course and permanence

The main purpose of this study is to determine the effect of science teaching supported by digital content on academic achievement, attitude towards the course and retention in learning. In line with this purpose, the study was designed according to the mixed method in which quantitative and qualitative research methods were used together. In the quantitative dimension of the study, a quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest control group was preferred, while a case study was used in the qualitative dimension. The study group of the quantitative dimension consisted of a total of 40 students from the 5th grade in a middle school in Battalgazi district of Malatya province, one experimental group (20) and one control group (20), while the study group of the qualitative dimension consisted of 11 students selected from the experimental group. The "Academic Achievement Test" of the Matter and Change Unit and the "Science Course Attitude Scale" developed by Uyanık (2014) were used to collect the quantitative data of the study. "Semi-structured Interview Form" was used to obtain qualitative data. For the analysis of quantitative data, normality tests were performed, parametric tests were used for normally distributed data, and non-parametric tests were used for non-normally distributed data. For the analysis of qualitative data, the second level inductive analysis method, which is a combination of content and descriptive analysis, was used. According to the results obtained by analyzing the data, science teaching supported with digital content applied to the experimental group increased academic achievement more than the control group, but did not statistically create a significant difference compared to the control group in which the current curriculum was used. In terms of attitude towards the course, there was no statistically significant difference between the attitude post-test scores of the experimental group and the control group. According to the results obtained regarding the retention in learning, a statistically significant difference was found between the retention test scores of the experimental group and the control group in favor of the experimental group. Accordingly, science teaching supported by digital content is effective in increasing retention in learning. According to the results obtained from qualitative data, while students generally expressed positive opinions about digital content such as creating self-learning opportunities, allowing repetition, increasing the desire to learn, attracting their interest and increasing their attention, they also expressed negative opinions such as having technical problems and preferring the teacher to explain the subject when given the option.