Investigation of the effect of different teaching approaches on the students' cognitive structure in the topic circulatory system in science course

The aim of this research was to investigate the effects of different teachingapproaches (such as direct expression, direct expression and concept maps, directexpression and concept maps with cooperative leanrning) on 6th grade students?cognitive structures occured in the topic of circulatory system in the science course.6th grade students of Marmara Primary School, placed in Kartal district ofAnatolian side of stanbul City, the univers of this research was. Again in the sameschool in 2005-2006 Education and Teaching year totaly 110 students attending 6A,6B and 6C classes which were randomly chosen form the sample of this research. Inthis sample, the unit called ?What are there in my body? How do we perceive ourenvironment??, in the subject of circulation system which carries essential substancesbetween our organs and our cells. Students in class 6/B were taught by usinglecturing approach (Control Group), students in class 6/A (1. Experimental Group)were taught by using lecturing approach as well as concept maps and students inclass 6/C (2. Experimental Group) were taught by using lecturing approach, conceptmaps and cooperative learning approach together.Word Association Tests (WAT), developed by the researcher were used inorder to show the relationship between concepts in the students?cognitive structures.WAT were applied as pretest and post test to all groups. Frequency charts thatdisplay responses of words given for each key concepts in the WAT were prepared.Different responses of words for each key concept were discovered. In addition,mind maps, showing cognitive structure of groups for either pre-WAT and post-WAT, were drawn in the light of the data shown in the frequency charts.Results obtained from this research showed that teaching approach affectedthe association between concepts in the students? cognitive structure. In other wordswhile there wasn?t obvious difference in pre-WAT mind maps of students, in thepost-WAT mind maps were seen that, i) mind maps of 1. experimental group weremore like network structure than the mind maps of the control group, also mind mapsof the students in the 2. experimental group were more like network than the mindmaps of students in the 1. experimental group. Importance of these results in terms ofeducation of science were taken into account with a critical point of view and somesuggestions were given.Keywords: Concept maps, cooperative learning, word association tests, cognitivestructure, teaching technique.