The effect of active learning in computer education on academic success and attitude of students and permanence of knowledge

In this study, it is investigated that whether the education, which is prepared according to active learning approach, affects academic success and attitude of students towards the graphic and animation course or not.This research was carried out among 20 participant consisting of 11th class students of `Gerede Teknik Anadolu Meslek ve Meslek? high school in the count of Gerede in Bolu in 2007-2008 education year. Studens was seperated two groups and each group had ten studens. For the Graphic and Animation course the class which teached with traditional learning methods is called as control group whereas the class which teached with active learning methods is called as experiment group.Both control and attitude groups were applied to achievement test, the graphic and animation course criterion before education. The same processes were repeated after education and in order to determine permanence of achieved knowledge the achievement test repeated at next week after last test application. The results of grading were analyzed by Mann Whitney U-test and Wilcoxon signed-rank test.Consequently, although the total points of experiment group at final success test is higher than that of control group according to scores of the final success test there is no significent difference in favor of experiment group [U=118.00, p>.05].When we take into conconsideration the surroundings and illustratings, this result shows that active learning has no meaningfull effect on computer teaching.It is observed that active learning make a difference to attitude of students [U=50.00, p<.05]. According to scores of the final test of behaviour scale it can be state that active learning approach based education is more effective on attitude of students towards the graphic and animation course than the traditional teacher-centered education methods.It is conclude that there is no difference in the scores of students in the experiment and control groups concerning with permanence of knowledge when experiment and control groups investigated according to permanence of knowledge.Keywords: Active learning , teacher-centered education, Studenet-centered education, computer education, behaviour, success, permanence.