The effect of learning journal on the students' academic achievements and writing skills in Turkish education

The aim of this research is to determine the effect of learning journal at Turkish education on 4th grade bilingual students' academic achievements and writing skills. In this study, "One Group Pre Test-Post Test Design" experimental model was used as the research model. Evaluation of the students was conducted at the beginning of and at the end of the practice regarding mentioned adequacy. Study group of the study consists of 4th grade students who were determined on the basis of easy accessibility from primary school that the researcher teaches. Research data was collected using researcher-developed Turkish Course Academic Achievement Test to determine the academic achievements of the students in Turkish, students' writings to measure students' writing skills and researcher-developed Writing Skills Graded Scoring Key to measure student's writing skills. During the application period of the study for 13 weeks, the students wrote learning journals in which they reflect on their learning. The necessary feedback and corrections have been made regarding the learning journals. The research data were analyzed by using Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test, Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis and Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient tests. As a result of research, it appeared that; • The relationship between students' academic achievement pretest-posttest scores and writing skills pretest-posttest scores are high, • Between students' writing skills and academic achievement pretest and posttest scores were found to be significantly different in favor of the posttest, • Academic achievement and writing skills pretest and posttest scores don't differ according to sex, number of siblings, maternal and paternal education level.