The effect of out-of-school learning activities on middle school students' perception of out-of-school learning environments, science attitudes and renewable energy awareness: The case of Siirt province

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of activities carried out in out-of-school learning environments on the perceptions of eighth grade middle school students towards these environments, their attitudes towards science course and their awareness levels about renewable energy sources. The study was conducted with 33 students studying in a middle school in the central district of Siirt province. In the study, a weak experimental model based on a one-group pretest-posttest design, one of the quantitative research approaches, was used. During the implementation process, visits to a solar power plant, a school garden and a biogas plant were organized with the students in the study group for four weeks. The Out-of-School Learning Environments Perception Scale (OLEPS), Science Attitude Scale (SAS) and Renewable Energy Sources Awareness Scale (REAS) were used as data collection tools. The normality distribution of the data obtained was evaluated by Shapiro-Wilks test and it was determined that the data did not show normal distribution. Accordingly, Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test, Mann-Whitney U Test and Spearman's rho correlation analysis, which are nonparametric test techniques, were preferred for data analysis. The findings of the study revealed that the out-of-school learning activities did not create a statistically significant difference in students' perceptions of out-of-school learning environments, attitudes towards science course and awareness levels of renewable energy sources. This result was associated with the short duration of the implementation and the limited number of participants. On the other hand, a statistically significant difference was found in the "integration" sub-dimension of the Out-of-School Learning Environments Perception Scale. This finding indicates that students' ability to associate the knowledge they acquired in out-of-school environments with the courses and to use this knowledge in both their academic and daily lives has improved.