An analysis of the effects of active learning-based activities employed in mathematics classes of the 6th grades on the creative thinking levels and attitudes of students

The main purpose of the study was to determine the effect of the active learning model, in which the learner had the responsibility of his own learning and the chance of self-monitoring himself by making his own decisions, on the pimary school learners? level of creative thinking, academic achievement and their attitude towards mathematics and also to make recommendations for the researchers and the educators. This study was carried out with 46 students who were studying in the 6th level of the primary school. The research design was the experimental design with the use of pretest-posttest on the control and the experimental groups. After the determination of the control and experimental groups, two tests; the Math Class Attitude Scale( designed by Baykul, 1990)and the Torrance Creative Test-Type A were applied before the experiment. After the experiment, the Math Class Attitude Scale and the Torrance Creative Thinking Test- Type B were used. The students in the experimental group studied math with the activities based on the active learning model throughout 32 hours. However, in the control group, the traditional instructional methods were used. In the analysis of the collected data, Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed Ranks test were used because of the number of the subjects. Upon the analysis of the data, it was found that the activities based on active learning used in math classes were more effective on improving students? level of creative thinking, academic achievement and their attitude towards math classes than the traditional methods. Thus, it was thought that the math teachers in the primary schools, by using active learning activities in math classes, should let their students receive knowledge by themselves and also let them improve their level of creativity.