Effects of using songs on some parameters in primary school mathematics instruction

This study was performed with the aim of finding out the effects of using songs in maths lessons on attitude, on performance, on the field of multiple intelligence, and on the level of conserving in memory of the third grade primary school students.The universe of the study was consisted of the students who were at the third grade of primary school in the city of Muğla.The research experiment group was consisted of 72 students of two different third grade primary schools which were in lower middle socio-economical level of villages in Bozöyük and Kafaca which were in the territory of Muğla.There were an experiment and a control group in the study; and a maths education which has been constructed according to the expected gains that have been estimated by the programme of primary school education to the control group, while an education of maths supported by using song has been applied to the experiment group.Data of the study were collected from the scale of Baykul (1990) which has been developed for Measuring in Education and Psychology: Attitude Towards Mathematics Developed for the Classical Test Theory and its Application; from the Attitude Towards Music Scale that has been developed by Kocabaş (1997); from the Multiple Intelligence Scale which has been developed by Selçioğlu, Demirsöz and Kocabaş (2005) to retrieve the interests, abilities, personal qualities, and the fields of strength and weaknes of primary school students; Achievement Test; Unite Achievement Tests; and from the semi-constructed interview form which has been developed for students as a qualitative data gathering tool.In the study which the experimental design of pre-test and post-test with control group (PPCD) and of time series have been used, the ?Mathematical Attitude Scale?, ?Musical Attitude Scale?, ?Multiple Intelligence Scale Developed for the Students?, and ?Unite Achievement Tests? have been used; and to retrieve the long term recalling ?Achievement Test? have been applied 4 months after the post-test.Because of the difference of the groups according to the pre-test, analysis of normality of groups has been done. According to the results of this analysis in the comparison of the groups for those which showed a nonparametric distribution of averages of pre-test vs post-test of groups, standart deviations, Mann Whitney U-test of pre-tests vs post-tests, Wilcoxon Labeled Sets Test, Kruskall Wallis Test have been used, and for the group of normal distribution, variance analysis, Scheffe Test, non correlated, that is, independent t-test, and t-test have been applied for correlated measurements which have been gathered in repeated measurings.According to the findings of the study, mathematics education supported by using songs was found efficient on the attitude of the students towards music and mathematics, on their performance points, on multiple intelligence fields, and on the level of reserving in memory in favour of the experiment group and this difference has been significant statistically. But there was no gender difference in the students? attitude towards music and mathematics. There was a statistically significant difference in favour of the experiment group on performance points, and attitude towards mathematics while there was no difference on attitude towards music, on reserving in memory. Finally, positive changes of the thoughts and attitudes of the students who get the Instruction of Mathematics Supported by Using Song were found.