Evaluation of the impact of engineering design-based activities through Algodoo performed in 6th-grade force and motion unit on design skills and academi̇c achievement of the students

In this reseach, it is aimed to state precisely that the effect of engineering design-based Algodoo activities that are used in the Force and Motion Unit on the 6th grade students' designing abilities and academic success. Besides, analysing the ideas of the students about the activities is the sub-aim of the survey. In this research, pretest-posttest control group experimental design was used and besides the research is done with 50 students (25 control group, 25 experimental group) who are the six grade students of a midddle class public school in 2016/2017 Academic year. While the lessons of the experimental group are taught and developed by the teacher and the teacher used the engineering design- based Algodoo activities during the lessons. On the other hand, the lessons are held through the middle school science curriculum from the public book to the control group. Academic success tests, science journals, activity handouts, video records and researchers' notes are data collection tools of this research. In the quantitative analysis of the data, parametric tests were used; on the other hand, in the qualitative analysis of the data is examined by the content analysis. In order to evaluate changes in the abilities of the students in the research group, "The Evaluation of the Engineering Designed Process Scoring Rubric" was used (NASA, 2015). At the end of the research, it is determined that the engineering design-based Algodoo activities which are used in the Force and Motion Unit contributes a visible increasing success of the students. The students show evaluation in these following steps of the engineering design process; "Identifying the need or the problem", "Developing the possible solutions", "Constructing the prototype", "Testing and evaluating the solutions"and "Presenting the solution".