Investigation of 8th grade students' learning styles and TIMSS matematics achivements from the aspect of different variable: Bayburt sample

In order to improve Teaching and Learning in the fields of Math and Science, TIMSS is an exam performed to collect comparative data about Educational Systems of Countries and applied to the 4th and 8th grade students in four-year period. Along with these goals, information, such as performances of students in the fields of Math and Science, Education Systems. Countries that participate in TIMSS exam, can gain an idea about at which level they are in the fields of Math and Science among the World Countries. TIMSS exam's being held in every four years helps to find the answer of whether the policies in Education or Education System of the Country progressing or not, how to improve Education situation of the Country and what are the major factors in the success of the Countries which have become successful according to the year of the previous exam. The concept of Learning Style was proposed for the first time in the 1960 by Rita Dunn and from this year Researchers have described Learning Styles in different ways. In general Learning Style is defined as the İndividual's preferred paths to the process of receiving the Information and processing it. Learning style is the Individual's approach to learning, while some student's having one of these learning tendencies ,some students may have several of them learning styles are innate characteristic features these features effect the Individual 's while walking, sleeping, sitting, speaking playing and writing. And actions are made according to the features there fare determining learning styles is important for the students to be successful in teaching learning process the relational research method was used in this research. The data of the study are collected from Reid's learning styles inventory and 45 questions which were chosen in times 20 math questions by consulting to expert opinion Quantitative data analysis method were used in the study the data were analyzed by using frequency , percent variance standart deviation, T-test and ANOVA in SPSS pocket. As a result of the study, it has been detected that learning styles varied according to schools but it didn't differentiate according to gender, transcripts, parent's educational level. Whereas, the result has been obtained that TIMSS achievements of 8th grade students changed according to the type of school, transcripts, parent's educational level, however, they didn't change according gender and learning styles. Based on the results obtained in this study, suggestions have been made. Key Words: TIMSS exam, learning styles, 8th grade students, Math.