The effect of istruction based on dienes principles to students' achievement and its permanence in the elementary school fourth- grade mathematics courses: An example of the variable concept

The aim of this research is to determine the effect of the "Variable Concept Teaching", which is designed according to the "Principles of Dienes", on the student success and the permanence of acquisition in 4th grade mathematics course. The research is designed according to the semi-experimental pattern with pretest-posttest control group. In the 2018-2019 academic year, 4-A and 4-B classes from Karasınır Primary School, located in Güneysınır Konya, have been determined as an experimental and control group by the neutral assignment method and have become the study group of the research. Mathematics lessons are tought according to Dienes principles in the Experimental Group, while in the Control Group they are tought according to the curriculum. For both groups, pre-test was used at the beginning of the research but at the end of the research post test and "Variable Concept Achievement Test" after one month from the post test was applied for the groups. "Variable Concept Achievement Test" is a test developed by the researcher and consists of 29 questions to measure the permanence of what is learned. Before the experimental process, there was no statistically significant difference between the scores of the groups. It was observed that the groups were equivalent. After the experimental process applied to the groups, the average scores obtained from posttest and permanence tests of the groups were compared. As a result of this comparison, it was observed that there was a statistically significant difference in the Experimental Group where teaching based on Dienes Principles was conducted. When the pretest and posttest average scores of the groups are examined, there is a statistically significant difference in the Experimental Group, while there is no statistically significant difference in the average scores of the Control Group. When the average of the scores obtained from the posttest and permanence test of both groups was exanined, it was observed that the permanence test average score of the Experimental Group decreased, compared to the posttest average score and increased in the Control Group. However, it was not statistically significant in two cases. When the average access scores in both groups were examined, a statistically significant difference was found in favour of the Experimental Group. It was observed that teaching based on Dienes Principles applied in the Experimental Group increased the success and provided permanent learning compared to the teaching conducted in line with the curriculum applied in the Control Group. Accordingly, ıt is concluded that teaching based on Dienes Principles increases success and provides permanent learning.