The effect of blended learning environment on students' engagement, academic achivement, attitude and motivation to the course of social studies in seventh grade in primary education

The purpose of this study is to analyze effects of blended learning environment on primary school students' engagement, motivation, academic achievement and attitude in social studies class.Pretest-posttest control group quasi experimental design was utilized in this study. The study was conducted in 2010-2011 school year with 52 students in experimental group and 55 students in control group studying in grade 7 in city of Ayaş in Ankara. The population consists of all seventh grade students in Ayaş primary schools. The implementation and data collection process lasted for six weeks.In order to collect data, pretest and posttest surveys and pretest and posttest achievement tests were used. The independent samples t-test was used in the data analysis phase.According to the results of this study, blended learning environment students' average of academic success and attitudes towards the course showed a meaningful increase when compared to face-to-face model. No meaningful statistical differences were detected for students? motivation and engagement between blended learning and face-to-face learning environment. However, in blended learning approach, average development of student engagement and motivation showed a meaningful rise when compared to face-to-face learning approach.