Teaching science and technology subject with integration of science and visual art activities at primary schools

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of visual arts activities on students? academic achievement about Science and Technology Course, attitudes towards integration of science and visual arts. Besides, this study also aims to investigate the effects of these activities on retention about students? conceptual learning.Visual arts activities were adapted from the topics of ?Particulate Nature of Matter? in Science and Technology Course for sixth grades. This research was conducted in a semi-experimental design by using pre-test and post-test design with control group during the academic year of 2006-2007 in Turkey. The visual arts activities used for students in the experimental group consist of Drawing and Painting, Marbling Art, Japan Origami Art, Burning Art, Metal Etching with diluted acid solution, Decoration with natural material, Sculpture and Photography. Marbling Art Activity was used for conceptualizing the subject that Matter can be Divided into Microscopic Invisible Particulates. Japan Origami Art was used for conceptualizing the subject of Physical Changes in Matter. Burning Art and Photography was used for conceptualizing the subject of Chemical Change in Matters. The students in the control group received instruction in the framework of Science and Technology Curriculum prepared by The Ministry of Education, in 2005. In both groups, the main approach of the instruction is based on constructivist learning. The participants are 6th grade students from a public school in Izmir, Turkey. The school where the participants attend is one of the pilot schools where the new Science and Technology Curriculum was applied for the first time. Another important feature of the school is that all the teachers in the school have received in-service training as professional development activity about the new curriculum. Among the 7 sixth grade classes having equal performance grading based on previous year Science and Technology Course and pre-test results, two classes were chosen randomly. After choosing the two classes, they were randomly assigned to the experimental (n=24) and the control group (n=25). During the research, the data were gathered by using three instruments. They are ?Attitude towards Integration of Science and Visual Arts (ATISVA)? questionnaire consisting of 28 five point likert scale items; ?Science Achievement Test (SAT)? with 25 items, and ?Open ended Questions about Particulate Nature of Matter? respectively. Furthermore, in order to increase the reliability and validity of data, eight randomly selected students from the experimental group were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol. In the pilot study, the instruments? reliability was checked by chronbach's alpha. The reliability of ATISVA is found to be .92. Construct validity were assessed with exploratory factor analysis which indicated four factors. For ?Science Achievement Test? about particulate nature of matter, KR-20 reliability coefficient and item difficulties were examined. The KR-20 reliability coefficient of this test was found to be .84. The semi-structured interview protocol was developed on the opinions of experts and then tested on randomly selected 3 students from the experimental group.At the end it was seen that, Visual arts activities significantly effected the academic achievement, retention and the attitude of students in the experimental group. It also showed that students in the experimental group learnt concepts about ?particulate nature of matter? much better, showed more interest in science and technology course, understood the artistic values in their environment greatly and chose the integration of science and visual art than those of students in the control group. During the interview, the students indicated that visual arts activities provide an opportunity for them to learn the concepts by enjoying, experimenting and observing.