Effect of process oriented guided inquiry learning (pogil) on 6th grade students' achievement, logical thinking skills and inquiry learning skills perceptions in the context of particulate nature of matter

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) on 6th grade students' achievement, logical thinking skills and inquiry learning skills perceptions in the context of particulate nature of matter. Non-equivalent control group design which is among the quasi experimental designs was usedin this study. It was executed over a 7-week period during the spring semester of 2016-2017 academic year. The participants were 54 6th graders of a middle school in Adana. Particulate nature of matter unit was taught through POGIL to the experimental group students (n=29). The students worked cooperatively in their groups on the worksheets which were designed according to learning cycle model. The same topic was taught to the control group students (n=25) through teacher led instruction where the content of the textbook was presented and the experiments were conducted by the teacher, and then whole class discussion was used to discuss the experiments. Data was collected through quantitative and qualitative techniques. Quantitative data was gathered by Particulate Nature of Matter Achievement Test (PNMAT), Group Assessment of Logical Thinking Test (GALT) and Scale of Inquiry Learning Skills Perception (SILSP). These tests were implemented before the application as pre-tests and after the treatment as post-tests to examine the effect of POGIL. Qualitative data was collected by interviews with the selected experimental group students after the treatment to find out their ideas about POGIL. The quantitative data was analyzed by ANOVA, Mann-Whitney U Test and independent samples t-test. Interview data was analyzed descriptively. The result of this study indicated that POGIL improved the achievement of 6th grade students more than traditional method (whole class instruction: teacher presentation, demonstration experiments and whole class discussion), in the context of particulate nature of matter unit. On the other hand, the results of analysis of data from GALT and SILSP scores showed that POGIL strategy had no significant effect on 6th grade students' logical thinking skills and perceptions of inquiry learning skills. According to the interview results, the students had fun and they thought that their socialskills, communication skills, abilities of expressing themselves and learning were improved during the implementation of POGIL. The limitations of POGIL were reported by the students as lack of materials, deviation from group roles and not using student-selected teams. Keywords: Process oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL), cooperative learning, learning cycle, particulate nature of matter