The effect of science teaching with stories on students 'academic achievement, attitudes, story writing skills, and application views

This research aims to compare the effects of teaching activities with stories on students' academic achievement and attitudes with the traditional teaching method. Also, to reveal the effect of the story education given to the students on the students' story writing skills and their views on story use. The research was carried out in Attorney Kemal Akça Primary School affiliated to Gazipaşa District National Education Directorate in the spring semester of the 2018-2019 academic year. The mixed research model was used in the research. 31 experiments and 30 controls, a total of 61 primary school third-grade students participated in the study. The students were randomly determined by the researcher as pretest-posttest, applied experiment, and control group. To collect quantitative data, the "Academic Achievement Test, Science and Technology Course Attitude Scale" was applied to the experimental and control group students. 8 activities were conducted with the students of the experimental group within the scope of story writing training for 2 weeks, two hours per week in a Turkish lesson. In the experimental group where the application was carried out, the unit was taught by the researcher using the stories prepared for 4 weeks and the students were asked to write a science story about the subject at the end of each lesson. The "Story Writing Skills Evaluation Scale" was used to determine the change in the story writing skills of the experimental group students, and the "Student Opinion Form on Story Use" was applied to the students to collect qualitative data. The research was carried out with a traditional teaching method in the control group. The quantitative data used in the study were analyzed with the SPSS 22.0 statistical program. The analysis of the qualitative data obtained through "Student Opinions on the Use of Stories" from the qualitative data was made by content analysis. In the quantitative findings of the study, while there was no significant difference between the pre-test data averages of the experimental and control groups in the achievement test, a significant difference was found in the post-test scores in favor of the experimental group; However, no significant difference was found between the pre-test scores and the post-test of the attitude towards the course scale between the experimental and control groups. The other quantitative finding of the research, in the evaluation of story writing skill, was found to be a significant difference between the first and the last story in favor of the last story. After the teaching activities with stories in the qualitative dimension of the study, positive findings were obtained that the experimental group students were familiar with stories, that it was fun for them to use in science lessons, and that they could be used in other lessons. As a result of the research, it can be said that teaching activities with stories positively affected students' academic achievement, story writing skills, and their thoughts about story use, but did not provide a significant difference in their attitudes towards science lesson.