The effect of activities based on multiple intelligences theory on primary school students' attitudes towards science

This research was conducted to determine whether there is a significant difference between the attitudes of the "experimental group to which activities based on the Theory of Multiple Intelligences were applied" and the "control group to which activities in the 2018 Science curriculum were applied" towards science in the teaching of the "Human and Environment" unit of the fourth-grade primary school Science course. The study group consists of 39 fourth-grade students studying in a public school in a provincial center in the Central Anatolia Region. A semi-experimental model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the research. The research was conducted in the fall semester of the 2023-2024 academic year. The data of the research were obtained by using the "Science Attitude Scale", which was applied as a pretest before the application and a posttest after the application. In order to measure the attitudes of fourth grade primary school students towards science, the Science Attitude Scale was applied to both groups as a pretest before teaching the "Human and Environment" unit, and the same scale was applied as a posttest after the experimental study. During the research process, the lessons were taught "according to the lesson plan prepared with activities based on Multiple Intelligence Theory" in the experimental group, and "according to the lesson plan prepared with activities in the 2018 Science curriculum" in the control group. IBM SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) for Windows 22.0 program was used to analyze the data. In the process of analyzing the data; Descriptive statistics, independent sample t test and dependent sample t test, which are parametric tests, were applied. According to the data obtained at the end of the study, no significant difference was found between the two groups of students in terms of their attitudes towards Science course as a result of the comparison of the pretest scores of the science attitude scale applied before the experimental study. After the application, it was observed that there was a significant difference between the post-test scores of the experimental group and the control group in the science attitude scale. It was observed that the science attitude post-test score of the experimental group was higher than the science attitude post-test score of the control group; after the application, the science attitude levels of the experimental group were higher than the science attitude levels of the control group. The results obtained from the findings of the research can be summarized as follows: While there was no significant difference between the two groups before the experimental study within the scope of the "Human and Environment" unit of the Science course, after the experimental study, a significant difference emerged in favor of the experimental group in which activities based on the Theory of Multiple Intelligences were carried out. According to these results, the lessons including activities based on multiple intelligence theory positively affected students' attitudes towards science.