The effect of informal learning environment on the secondary school students' academic achievement of science course and their opinions about informal learning environment: The case of the "Sasali Natural Life Park"

In the days of reaching knowledge so easily, it is possible to say that learning has become a part of our daily lives, and that we find ourselves in a new act of learning. Learning shouldn't be accepted as a process that is carried out with teachers and students within the scope of a planned activiy which is designed in a school/class beforehand. Also, the way of learning that happens unexpectedly without making any plans outside school/classroom is defined as informal learning, and the environments where that kind of learning happen are defined as informal learning environments. The most important way that can be followed for improving children's achievement for Science Course is to keep their interest alive for the lessons. Due to that reason, informal learning environment is becoming more and more important. In this study, it was aimed to determine the effect of zoos educational use as learning environments for secondary school students on the units of "the world of the living", "human and environment", "The living and energy relations" in Science Course and to use this environment for science learning and to study on the opinions of secondary school students about the environment. For those reasons, mixed method was used in this study. Thus, a more reliable result was obtained by using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative part of the study is designed as one of the quasi experimental Designs, pretest-pottest design control group model. The study group was constituted by 2774 students (5, 6, 7, 8 classes) that visited and that didn't visit Sasalı Natural Park in 2017-2018 educational year in the city of İzmir. The research was conducted with 1394 students that visited Sasalı Natural Park, and 1380 students that had current Science Curriculum at their schools were chosen. Academic achievement tests which were created by the researcher were applied to both groups as the pretest and the posttest. When the data were analyzed; while the scores of both groups for the pretest aren't significant, it is found that the scores for the posttest are significant in countenance of the experiment group. This result shows that the students in the experiment group are more successfull than the students in the control group. The study's qualitative part was carried out with the voluntary participation of students that are in the experiment group. Semi-structured interviews were made to determine the opinions of students about Sasalı Natural Park as an informal learning environment and its use for Science Course. Out of 1394 students, 1099 students, who visited Sasalı Natural Park, participated in the study. After the interviews, made with the students, it was seen that the students thought zoos as learning environments, they both enjoyed and learnt new things at the same time, and also, they were able to learn about the subjects of science outside the classroom. Keywords: Informal Learning, Informal Learning Environments, Zoo, Academic Achievement, Students Opinions