Investigation 6th and 7th grade students' learning styles and mathematical problem solving skills

In this research, the difference between the mathematical problem solving skills of the sixth and seventh grade middle school students according to the dominant learning styles examined, also the relationship between the sixth and seventh grade students' problem solving skills and their mathematics grade point averages, the students' problem solving skills differences according to the grade level, gender, mother's and father's educational status were examined. The sample of the study consisted of 315 secondary school 6th and 7th grade students studying in the city center of Usak. In order to collect data in the research, the "Problem Solving Achievement Test" developed by Salman (2012) to determine student's mathematical problem solving skills, the "Kolb Learning Style Inventory" developed by Kolb (1985) and revised in 2005 to determine the dominant learning style of student's and "Personal Information Form" was used to determine student's class levels, gender, mathematics grade averages, and educational status of their parents. In the analysis of data, besides descriptive statistics, t-test for independent samples, one-way analysis of variance, Mann Whitney-U test, Kruskal Wallis-H test and Spearman Brown correlation coefficient analysis were used. According to the findings obtained as a result of the analysis of the data, moderately positive and significant relationship was found between the students' problem solving skills and their mathematics grade point averages. It was found that the scores obtained from the general of problem solving achievement test and the subtests of understanding the problem, applying the plan, and control showed a significant difference in favor of the seventh graders according to the grade level. It was found that the scores obtained from the general of problem solving achievement test and all subtests differed significantly in favor of girls according to gender. On the other hand, it was seen that the scores obtained from the general of problem solving achievement test and all subtests except the control subtest differed significantly according to the educational status of the mother, while the scores obtained from the general of problem solving achievement test and all subtests differed significantly according to the educational status of the fathers. Finally, the dominant learning style that students have the most, respectively, was found to be diverging, assimilating, accommodating and converging. It was observed that the scores obtained from the general of problem solving achievement test and from all subtests except for the problem understanding subtest differed significantly according to learning styles, and the problem solving skills of the students with a dominant "converging" learning style were better than the problem solving skills of the students with a dominant "diverging" learning style.