Design of intoeractive out-of-class chemistry environment and evaluation of its effectiveness

In recent years, the activities of learning and teaching have become lifelong process by integrating with home, school, office, and all the possible places and opportunities. New settings are necessary for introducing new information acquired with the integration of breakthroughs in science and technology to society in an easy, comprehensible and enjoyable way. The activities carried out of school are important for enriching students' learning experiences, socialising students, and providing permanent learning. In this respect, the aim of the study is to analyze the effect of an interactive out-of-class chemistry environment which consists of amusing and interactive activities on the levels of students' associating chemistry with daily life and their attitudes of chemistry. In accordance with this purpose, the embedded design was chosen from mixed designs because of the fact that both qualitative and quantitative data were collected In quantitative part of the study, one-group protest-posttest design, a type of quasi-experimental designs, was used in experimental section of the study . The participants of the study were 19 students attending 1, 2 and 3 grades in a private high school in Akçaabat, Trabzon. The researcher developed worksheets based on activities for interactive out-of-class chemistry environment as data gathering tool. Concurrently, the researcher used Chemistry Attitude Scale (CAS) to analyze the effect of this environment on the chemistry attitudes of the students, and 'Evaluating Self and Experiment Form' was used to determine the level of interaction between the activities and students. Quantitative data were analyzed by using SPSS. In qualitative part of the study, it was used Experience Assessment Test to determine the experience of students after the interactive out-of-class chemistry trip and semi-structured interviews. In this sense, interviews were carried out about ten minutes with two students from each grade, in total 6 students. Also, Experience Assessment Test was applied to all the students who participated in the study. The data of the interviews were analyzed via content and descriptive analysis. The data gathered from Experience Assessment Test were interpreted with a frequency table. After the treatment, it was found that there was a significant difference in the attitudes of students in favor of post-test (z=2.18, p ˂.05). Additionally, it was found that there was a significant difference in the perceptions of the students on the first sub-scale of the questionnaire which shows the students' enjoying in the chemistry course (z=-2.57, p< .05). On the other hand, it was explored that there was no significant difference in the perceptions of the students on future career plans for chemistry (z=-,92, p>.05). Moreover, when the post tests of the worksheets were analyzed, it was seen that there were significant differences in experiments except soap experiment in favor of post- tests. The data showed that students' interaction with experiments varied and there was a relation between the interaction level and the level of associating chemistry with daily life. While there was no significant difference between the attitudes and grades of the students, there were significant differences between the grades and the levels of students' associating chemistry with daily life in terms of only pre-test worksheets. The results indicating there were no significant difference among the grades in post-tests show that the activities carried out in out of class affected the level of the students' associating chemistry with daily life. The data of the interviews supported these results. In the light of the findings, interactive out-of-class activities are recommended for students to associate the subjects of chemistry with their daily life and improve their attitudes towards chemistry. Keywords: Chemistry Teaching, Interactive Out-of-Class Chemistry environment, Out-of-School Learning Informal Learning