The effects of using mind mapping on students' academic achievement, retention and affective characteristics in Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge

The aim of this study is to determine the effects of mind mapping on students' success, permanance, affective features as attitude and motivation and the perceptions on applications at Education of Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge. The study has been conducted as mixed method. When the structure of the study is taken into consideration, purposeful sampling method has been preferred. The study has been conducted on 2013-2014 education-teaching period on 6th grade students of Bahçelievler Middle School in Elazığ. At the study there are two groups as control and experiment groups. The research has been conducted on 50 students while 25 is experiment and the other 25 is control group. The applications has been conducted on "İslam'ın Sakınılmasını İstediği Bazı Davranışlar" unit on Education of Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge. At the study on which the quantitative and qualitative research patterns have been used together, the data has been collected by success tests, attitude and motivation scales, investigation and interview forms. After the application interviews have been conducted with selected students and the lesson teacher. After the study, a significant difference has been observed on the motivation points of the experiment group on which mind mapping has been implemented. While the motivation points of experiment group increased, there has not been any difference between pre-motivation and post-motivation points of control group. After the applications on the experiment group on which mind mapping has been implemented, the attitudes has been changed on positive manner. No difference has been observed on control group on which the current education method was being implemented. Following the application while an increase on success level of experiment group has been observed, no significant difference been observed on control group. While focusing on the qualitative dimension of the research, it has been observed that results that supports, defines and details the quantitative dimension have been achieved. At the research, regarding the application of mind mapping it has been resulted that the subject, convenient environment, and imagination are essential. The popular aspects of mind mapping are, visual expression, cooperation, to convey information on to paper, using stickers, concept seeking and coloring. The contributions of mind mapping are observed as cognitive and affective effects, active contribution to and endearing lesson. An important result derived from qualitative data is the problems faced during the application. These problems are the inadequateness of the paper, difficulty of finding concept, noise of the classroom, first implementation of application and the lack of time. After the research, mind mapping method is suggested to be applied at the other units of Education of Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge and other lessons, to ensure detailed information and in service training about mind mapping to teachers. Key Words: affective field, value education, moral education, affective features, affective behavior education, motivation, attitude, perception mind mapping.