The effect of supporting organic chemistry lesson with experimental method on students? success in the secondary education

In this research the effect level of laboratory supported instruction on the understandings of 11th grade students? organic chemistry lessons and their academic success was examined. Moreover; it was investigated that whether ?experimental method with a group? or ?demonstration experiments? is more effective which are certain types of laboratory supported teaching methods. Also, it was determined that how much the students in Technical High School and Anatolian Vocational High School succeeded in understanding the subject of alkynes. As a sub problem, it was investigated that whether the students? scientific procedure skills and logical thinking abilities and their genders have an effect on the success.This research was carried out in the chemistry department of M. Rüştü Üzel Vocational High School, in Yenimahalle district of Ankara in the first term of 2008-2009 educational years. It was made on 61 eleventh grade students who studied in Anatolian Vocational and Anatolian Technical High School. There were 22 students from Anatolian Vocational High School and there were 39 students from Anatolian Technical High School. The research lasted four weeks.?Personal Information Form (PIS)? was applied to both groups at the beginning of the research. The point was to enable the researcher to know the students better and the answers to the sub problems were sought. ?Scientific Procedure Skills Test (SPST)? and ?Logical Thinking Ability Test (LTAT)? were applied to the eleventh grade students who studied in Anatolian Vocational and Anatolian Technical High School. The classes were divided into two groups according to the results of these tests.The subject of alkynes was explained to both classes by ?Traditional Instruction Method?. At the end of the instruction ?Test of Concepts on the Subject of Alkynes (TCSA)? which was prepared by the researcher and confirmed its content validity by the thesis advisor was applied as ?Pre-test?. While one of the groups, consisting of the students in Anatolian Vocational and Anatolian Technical High School, was applied demonstration experiments, the other was applied experimental method with a group. Thus, traditional instruction method was supported with two different types of laboratory methods. After the instruction, ?Test of Concepts on the Subject of Alkynes (TCSA)? was applied to the groups as ?Post-test?. The formation of groups can be summarized in the following schema.The data that was acquired at the end of the research was evaluated by using SPSS software. Whether there was a significant difference between the groups was determined by using t-test, and the hypothesis of the research was analyzed. The results were compared with 0.05 level of significance.It was found that laboratory supported method had a positive effect on teaching the subject of alkynes. It was determined that there was no significant difference between using the experimental method with a group and demonstration experiments in terms of students' understanding the subject of alkynes. It was found out that there was not a significant difference between the students from the Anatolian Vocational High School and those from Technical High School in terms of understanding the subject of alkynes. It was also found that students? logical thinking and scientific processing abilities didn?t have an important effect on understanding the subject of alkynes. It was discovered that there was no significant difference between the male and female students in control and experimental group in terms of understanding the subject of alkynes