The effects of the reflective writing activities in science teaching on students' metacognitive abilities and affective variables

The aim of this resarch; to determine the effect of science teaching methods practiced by using reflective writing activities to the students' metacognitive skills and their self efficacy perception and attitudes about science. It is important to know how the students structure they have learned to be sure about in the learning process and immediately after.How the person structure the knowledge becomes clear through the oral or written reflection of him/her. Written reflection develops one's self expression skills besides defining the learning level. So it is thought that to search the effect of reflective writing in science teaching to students' metacognitive and affective variables would be accurate. In the study, quasi-experimental design with pre-test/post-test and control group was used. In the study, it was examined whether there is a significant difference between the students who study the application of reflective writing activities and the students' -who will study according to current Science and Technology program- metacognitve skills, attitudes to Science and levels of self-sufficiency. In the research , " the instruction of reflective diary perception" developed by the researcher in order to collect data, "metacognition scale" developed by Akpınar, Ergin, Tutar and Yıldız(2009), "attitude scale for science lesson" developed by Akınoğlu(2001) and "self-efficacy perception scale" in science and technology lesson developed by Ilgaz(2011) have been used. The result of the research shows that the reflective writing activities increase students' self-efficacy perception, metacognitive skills and and attitudes for science lesson. In addition ıt has been found that there is a positive relationship between students' reflective writing skills and attitudes, metacognitive skills and self-efficacy perceptions.