The influence of constructivist approach and computer assisted instruction in biology teaching on the students? achievements and attitudes

This study was carried out to reveal the influences of constructivist approach and computer assisted instruction on the students? achievements and attitudes. The subjects of Digestive and Urinary Systems from Biology units were presented through the use of constructivist approach and computer assisted instruction with, also, a comparison and contrast with the traditional teaching methods. The sample of the Study was made up of 87 third-year students from the Department of Primary School Science Education from Kastamonu Education Faculty of Gazi University in 2005-2006 academic year. The control group with the traditional teaching method consisted of 21 students; and the experimental groups were composed of 66 students (22 of whom were taught with the computer assisted instruction method; 22 of whom were taught with the constructivist approach; and the remaining 22 of whom were taught the subjects with computer assisted instruction based on constructivist approach). To collect the data for the study, ?Biological Attitude Scale?, ?Computer Attitude Scale?, and ?Biology Achievement Test? were applied to all groups. The Study was designed with a quasi-experimental style by applying pre-tests and post-test to the groups. Two-way variance of analysis and paired t-test were employed for the data analysis.According to the results of the analysis, it was found out that there existed a significant statistical difference in the biology achievement post-test mean scores of the control and experimental groups, which was caused by the mean score differences between the control group students who were taught with the traditional teaching methods and the experimental group students who were taught with computer assisted instruction methods based on constructivist approach. On the other hand, there seemed to exist no significant mean differences in the post-test scores of the control and experimental groups with regard to their attitudes toward biology and computer. The gender of the participants and the methods applied throughout the study had a significant positive influence on the biology post-test scores of the female students. However, gender, as a independent variable, had no significant influence on students? achievements and on the attitudes toward the computer.Based on paired t-test results, all groups had significantly positive gainings on biological attitude and achievement tests as well as on computer attitudes when the data were compared with pre-test scores. However, no significant statistical difference was found between the groups when ?gender? as a variable taken into consideration.