The effect of blended method on primary school 3rd grade students' speaking skills and attitudes

The aim of the study is to determine the effect of blended method on the speaking skills and attitudes of 3rd grade primary school students. In the study, explanatory sequential design from mixed research methods was used. The study was conducted with 48 students studying in a primary school in Çumra district of Konya in the 2023-2024 academic year. The data were collected with speaking skill attitude scale, speaking skill evaluation form, student interviews and researcher diaries. The application, which lasted for 16 weeks in total, including a 3-week pilot application, was carried out for 2 class hours per week. The video recordings taken in the pretest and posttest were examined and the speaking skill evaluation form was filled out and analysed after checking the rater reliability. SPSS and AMOS statistical package programmes were used for quantitative data and content analysis method was used for qualitative data. Since the distribution of the data obtained as a result of statistical analyses was normal, t-Test was performed for dependent and independent samples from parametric tests. ANCOVA Test was used to control the effect of the pretest on the posttest. As a result of the analyses, statistically significant differences were found between the pretest-posttest scores of the experimental group students in favour of the posttest, and between the posttest scores of the experimental and control group students in favour of the experimental group. While there was no significant difference between the pretest-posttest scores of the control group in terms of attitudes towards speaking skills, it was concluded that there was some increase in speaking skill levels compared to the pretest due to the nature of education and training. When the results of the descriptive analysis of the student interviews were examined, the students stated that the course taught using the blended method had a positive effect on their speaking skill attitudes and speaking skill levels. In the last part of the study, the results were discussed in the light of the literature and various suggestions were made. Keywords: Speaking Skill, Blended Method, Attitude towards Speaking Skill