The effect of using blogs in English lesson on academic success and attitudes towards the lesson

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of using blogs in English lesson on academic success and attitudes towards the lesson. Today, with the acceleration of contemporary learning and teaching theories, blogs, increasingly popular, have taken a place in the field of education. The activities carried out in the English lesson in this study were published through blogs. The sample of the study consists of 55 students (27: experiment group, 28: control group) in Sadreddin Konevi Anadolu Imam Hatip High School that is located in Yeşilyurt, Malatya, Turkey. As a quantitative one, semi-experimental method with control group of pre-test and post-test was used. In this study, the data were collected by means of the academic achievement test, the attitude scale and the rubric for the activities. During the experimental process, activities in the experimental group were published on blogs by the students, whereas the same activities were carried out with the existing methods in the control group. The academic achievement test of which the pilot practices were done by the researcher, was applied to both groups as pre-test and post-test. To investigate the effect of using blog on the attitude, The Attitude Scale Towards The English Lesson developed by Tulgar (2018) was applied to both groups as pre-test and post-test. Whether there was a significant difference between the qualities of the activities carried out by the experimental and control groups was measured with the rubric developed by the researcher. The data obtained from the research were analyzed by statistical software. According to the findings obtained after analyzing the data, it was seen that although the use of blogs in English lesson increased the academic success, it did not make a significant difference on increasing academic success compared to the control group, but it made a significant difference upon the attitude in favor of the experimental group. The activities performed by the experimental group were found as more qualified and attentive compared to those done by the control group. Key Words: English Lesson, Activities, Blogs, Academic Success, Attitude.