The effect of integrated mathematics and life science teaching on 3rd-grade students' academic achievement, attitudes and tolerance value acquisition

This study aims to see how integrated mathematics and life science teaching affects 3rd-grade students' academic achievement, their attitudes toward lessons and tolerance value acquisition. A quasi-experimental design with pretest-posttest control group, which is among the quantitative research designs, was used in the research. The research was performed in the province of Kırşehir during the 2019-2020 academic year. The study group of the research consists of 32 students in the experimental group, who are equivalent in terms of their academic achievements in mathematics and life science lessons attending the third grade of primary school in the city center of Kırşehir, and who received integrated mathematics and life science teaching in the third grade of primary school and 34 students in the control group, in which mathematics and life science lessons are conducted independently from each other as per to the textbooks and workbooks approved by the Ministry of National Education. The Mathematics Achievement Test developed by the researcher, the Life Science Achievement Test, the Mathematics Lesson Attitude Scale developed by Baykul (1990b), the Life Science Lesson Attitude Scale developed by Oker and Tay (2020), and the Tolerance Value Acquisition Scale developed by Sarumsak (2011) are the scales that are implemented for data collection purposes. The experimental process in this study is eight weeks. SPSS 26 statistical program was implemented to develop tests and analyze data. Arithmetic mean, standard deviation, standard error and corrected p values were used for descriptive statistics scores. The achievement test scores were transformed into a 100-point system and evaluated. After testing the normal distribution of the data, Paired Samples t-Test, Independent Simple t-Test, Mann-Whitney U Test and Wilcoxon Test were applied for measurements. The results obtained in the research are as follows: When compared to the control group, in which mathematics and life science lessons were taught separately according to textbooks and workbooks, the experimental group significantly improved their academic achievement levels in both mathematics and life science lessons, in which the lessons are instructed with integrated mathematics and life science instruction of third grade of primary school This situation is revealed in terms of both the post-test mean scores and gain score means of the groups. However, for both lessons, the gap in academic achievement between the experimental and control groups favored the post-tests between pretest and post-test results. Another finding from the study was that, while the experimental group's lessons resulted in a significant difference in students' post-test attitude levels toward the mathematics lesson compared to the control group's lessons, this was not the case for the life science lesson. However, in both the experimental and control classes, the attitude levels of students toward mathematics and life science lessons changed in favor of the post applications relative to the prior applications. Another finding of the study is that the experimental group students' tolerance value acquisition increased significantly more than the control group students. However, compared to the prior application, both the experimental and control group students' acquisition of the value of tolerance resulted in favor of the post-application in both groups. Consequently, the integration of mathematics and life science lessons, which followed the principles of the interdisciplinary approach, improved students' academic achievement in both mathematics and life science lessons and their tolerance value acquisition. The results showed that integrated mathematics and life science instruction improved students' academic achievement in mathematics and life science lessons. In this context, primary school teachers may be advised to use an integrated curriculum method in mathematics and life science lessons in conjunction with their achievements' content.