A case study regarding association between the unit of heat and temperature and daily life within ninth (9th) grade physics course

There has been a great need for human beings to investigate physical sciences beginning from the structure of living organisms for the maintanence of liveliness over the years. As for in teaching physical sciences which are necessary for making sense of life, it is highly essential to associate between daily life and science. In regard to this point of view, the general aim of the study was to examine the association between the unit of heat and temperature and daily life through teaching process and the evaluation of unit at the end of this process in two different Anatolian High Schools. The study was conducted in two dimensions including teachers and students. Designed as a mixed method research within study, findings were predominantly obtained from the analyses of qualitative data. The quantitative dimension of the study remained in the background. In the scope of the study, two different Anatolian High Schools were determined among 20 Anatolian High Schools located in central districts of Adana via extreme-deviant sampling method in the spring term of 2015-2016 academic year. Thereby, one Anatolian High School whose success level was low and another Anatolian High School whose success level was high were defined and one each ninth grade class was selected randomly from these two high schools. The participants of the study were composed of students and physics teachers of the selected ninth grade classes. Throughout the teaching process of the unit of heat and temperature, 8 class hours were observed in the school whose success level was high and 7 class hours were observed in the school whose success level was low (totally 15 class hours). That is, 15 class hours were observed in total. At the end of the unit, GHIS (Heat and Temperature in Daily Life) test developed by Aytekin (2010) was administered and then semi-structured interviews were conducted with two physics teachers, 9 volunteer students from the high school whose success level was high and 7 volunteer students from high school whose success level was low. For the analyses of quantitative data, t-test was utilized and in the analyses of qualitative data, content analysis and descriptive analysis methods were used together. In the student-dimension of the study, it was found out that high school students whose success level was high significantly differed in concepts and topics of change of state, expansion, heat, heat transfer and energy transmission ways compared to high school students whose success level was low according to the results of GHIS test administered to ninth grade students at the end of the unit of heat and temperature. When students' views on why they learn the unit of heat and temperature were examined, it was revealed that students in the high school whose success level was high thought that this unit contributed their general world knowledge but students in the high school whose success level was low were in the idea that they were obliged to learn this unit. Students gave mostly examples for change of state related to daily life; however, they could not give examples related to daily life for such concepts and terms as heat, internal energy, specific heat, heat capacity, rate of energy transfer, expansion of liquids, expansion of gases and contraction that need to be taught in the scope of physics curriculum. It was also observed that physics teachers did not present examples related to daily life for the concepts of heat capacity, heat, internal energy and contraction during their lessons. In spite of this, only a few students were able to give examples related to daily life for such concepts as heat transfer, thermal equilibrium, energy saving which were exemplified in lessons and this showed that they had difficulty in associating these concepts with daily life. When the two high schools were examined separately, it was seen in interview findings that students in the high school whose success level was high were able to give less but more comprehensive examples about daily life than the students in the high school whose success level was low. It was identified that students from both schools were approximately equally successful in terms of associating the unit of heat and temperature with occupations from daily life and they made mostly connection between this unit and meteorologists. With regard to linking this unit with other lessons, students made use of mostly chemistry and then biology, mathematics and geography lessons respectively. Another important finding was that almost only half of the students could use the right information to solve problems such as health problems which are mostly experienced in daily life in terms of heat and temperature, and also problems deriving from change of state and weather conditions. Generally, students evaluated the unit of heat and temperature as easy emphasizing the importance of technology and teachers in teaching process. They suggested that this unit should be more associated with daily life. As to the dimension of teachers, it was detected that the teacher of the high school whose success level was high gave more place to daily life examples than the other teacher. However, it was observed that both of them did not present daily life examples about the concepts of heat capacity, heat, internal energy and contraction in their lessons. Teachers stated that they benefited from course books and their own experiences while they presented daily life examples in lessons. Moreover, interview findings showed that teachers were found to benefit from mathematics and physical sciences in order to associate the unit of heat and temperature with daily life but except for these two lessons, they did not benefit from any other lessons. There were some problems in the high school whose success level was low due to criteria for passing lessons and discipline, but the biggest problem in the other school was defined as problems about time. Both teachers pointed out that they did not conduct any measurement and evaluation applications about students' daily life knowledge in this unit. Nevertheless, the teacher in the high school whose success level was high exposed students to formative and summative assessments and the teacher in the other school emphasized that he only used summative assessment and took into account whether students obeyed school and classroom rules while evaluating them. Furthermore, teachers gave some suggestions about how to solve problems which they encountered while they were teaching the unit of heat and temperature. In conclusion, it was explored that some factors in addition to teachers, such as teaching process and measurement and evaluation methods had an influence on associating the unit of heat and temperature with daily life for ninth grade students in different Anatolian High Schools.