The effect of using the argumentation methodin science education academi̇c achi̇evement, sci̇enti̇fi̇c process and problem solvi̇ng ski̇lls

This study aims to examine the effect of using the argumentation method to study electricity in science education on middle school students' academic achievement, scientific processand problem solving skills. The research was conducted using quasi-experimental design, a quantitative research method, and pretest–posttest control group design. It included 29 students in two groups, an experimental group (14) and a control group (15), who were seventh graders at Karaelmas Secondary School in the province of Zonguldak. These experimental and control groups were chosen random. Experimental and control group students determined to be balanced according to their gender, their sixty grade year-end average success scores, seventh grade firs term Science Lesson's average success scores. In this study, 7th Grade Science Education Lesson, "Elektrical Energy" unit was studied with expermental group students by the argumentation activities handled with traditional teaching methods for 6 weeks. The research data were collected using the academic achievement, scientific process skills and logical thinking group tests. All three testswere applied as pre and post-test to experimental and control group students. The quantitative data were not normally distributed, and therefore were analyzed using the Mann Whitney U and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, which are the non-parametric statistics in SPSS software. The research concluded that the academic achievement posttest score of the experimental group, who were taught using the argumentation method, was significantly higher than that of the control group, who were taught in accordance with the curriculum. There was no difference between the scientific process skills and problem solving variable posttest scores of the experimental group and control group.