The effect of the photo-science application to the successes of the students at the science and technology lessons

This research addresses the effect of the massive usage of the photographs, which are the visual and audial tools that are part of the education technology, at the Science and Technology lesson of the primary schools on the academic success of the students.In the research, the term `the Science and Technology instruction with the photographs? was shortened as Photo-Science application to make the expression easier. In the research, the experimental design with the pretest-finaltest control groups was used.The study was performed in 2009-2010 academic years of Ankara Altındağ Battalgazi Primary School on 70 students educated at the 5th class. In the research, 5/C class with 30 students comprised the experimental group and 5/B class with 40 students comprised the control groups.The effect of the usage of the photographs during the education on the success of the students was investigated in the research. After the success test configured according to the expert opinions was applied to the experimental and control groups as a pretest, the lessons with the Photo-Science application were given to the experimental group. The lessons of the control group were resumed by the conventional method.At the end of two lessons given, the success test was applied to the experimental and control groups as a finaltest. Attained data were analyzed by SPSS 16 package program. The frequencies, percentage distribution, mean value and standard deviation regarding the data were calculated. The free t-test was performed in the dual comparison by the purpose of determining whether if the application affected differently in between two groups.According to the data obtained in the research, it appeared that there were significant differences between the last tests of the students after taking the lessons in which the education method of the Photo-Science application was used and not used (classical education method was applied), in favor of the Photo-Science application.It is concluded that the instructional lessons with the Photo-Science application has a positive effect on the student success and this effect does not differ according to the sex, attitudes toward the lesson, attending to a private class/course, the success level and the studying environment of the students.With respect to these data, some suggestions are offered as regarding the Science and Technology education and concerning the scientific research supposed to be performed in the future.Key Words: Educational Technology, Photo-Science, visual-audial tools, photograph, education with photograph, science and technology.