Development of measurement tools to evaluate the students' modelling processes

The main purpose if this study is to develop measurement tools to evaluate the students' modelling processes considering the 5, 6 and 7th grade students' way of thinking in the modelling activities and the behavior of the students while they exhibit those ways of thinking. In this study, "Modelling Activities" were considered as cases and the modelling processes of the students who attended those activities examined in detail considering students' way of thinking in the modelling activities and the behavior of the students while they exhibit those ways of thinking. One of the case study method which is intrinsic case study was thought to be the best fit method in this study since the study was conducted with different grades (5th, 6th, and 7th grade) through only one case (modelling process). The study was carried out with 5th, 6th and 7th graders in 3 different secondary school in Trabzon and the total is 180 students who took the "Elective Science Practices" course during the 2014-2015 spring semester and with the 8 science teachers in the practice schools. The study was conducted in 2 steps and the participant students and teachers were separated into groups as I. Practice Group and II. Practice Group. 120 students and 8 science teachers were in the I. Practice Group where the graduated grading key were developed and 60 students were in the II. Practice Group where the developed measurement tool's validity and reliability were satisfied. During the I. Practice, students' way of thinking in the modelling activities and the behavior of the students while they exhibit those ways of thinking tried to be delivered and the opinions and feedbacks of the teachers in the practice schools about this subject tried to be taken. During the II. Practice, analysis of the measurement tool developed by the data gathered during the I. Practice was done. The clinical interviews, observation form, survey form and graduated grading key developed considering the study's problem statement and purpose by the researcher were used as the data collection tools. Clinical interviews were done in the schools chosen within the I. Practice in 5 weeks. The data obtained from the students who participated effectively to the modelling activities and from the clinical interviews during the practice were transferred to the observation forms. Observations done in 5 weeks with 3 students in every grade among the students in the 5th, 6th and 7th graders in the schools chosen for the study. After that, in order to take the opinions of the teachers, survey form developed depending on the data obtained from the clinical interviews and observation forms. This survey form was applied to the science teachers in the chosen schools during the I. Practice in 1 week. II. Practice stage of the study which is 5 week long started after the data gathered with the data collection tools developed and used during the I. Practice transferred to the graduated grading key. During this stage, analysis for the reformed graduated grading key was done. During the analysis of the clinical interviews, descriptive analysis and content analysis was applied on the gathered data. During the analysis of the data gathered with the self-structured observation form, the marks on the form and the statements about the relative item was investigated. In the analysis of the survey form frequency (f) and percentage (%) was used. Also, opinions of the teacher about the modelling process were taken and obtained data was subjected to content analysis. Validity and reliability tests were performed on the graduated grading key. According to the opinions of the students about the features that students should have for the modelling activities, themes such as creativity, responsibility, organization, self-confidence, initiative and analogic thinking came into the forefront. As a result of the investigations, it is seen that those themes are the subtitles of the skills called 21st century skills. Besides, students mentioned about the material cognizance and productivity which are the skills belong to the engineering fields. This situation shows us that modelling skills take an important place in the structure called "STEM Education". Therefore, modelling activities should be the one of the teaching aids that favored during the education process. Within this context, modelling activities should be included more in the education process.