The effects of realistic mathematics approach on student achievement and opinions

Realistic mathematichs education is a recent educational approach set forth by Freudental Institution in Holland for mathematichs education. The purpose of this study is to answer if there is a reasonable difference on academical success of students who get education with traditional and RME approach question on "Teaching geometrical objects to 8th grade students" subject. Study group consist of total 47 students contains 21 experimental and 16 control group from "Ordu Anadolu İmam Hatip Lisesi Fen ve Sosyal Bilimler Proje Okulu" in Altınordu, Ordu. Experimental and control group has same academical success level as the school which this study has runned is a school which accepts students with an exam only. After the experimental and control groups created, a 25 question pre-test performed to understand level of knowledge of the group regarding geometrical objects. The same test performed on the same groups 8 weeks later as retention test. To determine opinions of the students in experimental group regarding RME and related learning activities, semi-structured interviews are conducted. The data obtained from the pretest, posttest and retention tests were analyzed with t-test for independent samples, t-test for dependent samples and variance analysis for mixed measurements with 0.05 significance level. The analysis of the data obtained from the semi-structured interviews is carried out by analyzing the responses with content analysis and creating the frequency table of the answers given to each question. According to the results, it is seen that learning activities prepared according to RME approach are much more effective than learning activities prepared according to the traditional approach on students' academic success.