The effect of internet-supported research actitivities on 4th grade primary students? level of internet literacy and academic success

The purpose of this research is to deeply investigate the performance tasks of primary school students faced in new educational system, their level and quality of the internet usage while performing the project work online, the internet literacy levels and the impact of the internet-supported research activities on students? academic success. For this purpose, internet-supported research activities were prepared for fourth grade primary school students studying ?Let's Meet and Visit the World Live? unit in Science and Technology Course.Sample consisted of 96 fourth grade students studying in primary schools of Duzce province. Qualitative and quantitative research methods were used together. For the quantitative data, the internet literacy level survey and academic achievement test, and for the qualitative data, a teacher observation form and semi-structured interviews will be used. Students' awareness of using the internet to research was studied in depth to determine whether or not there will be patterns consciously and students? motions were recorded by voice and video recorders.As a result, Internet-supported research activities were found to be effective to improve students' academic achievement than traditional teaching methods. Internet-supported research activities also had positive effects on the internet literacy levels of students. The control group in which traditional teaching methods were used also had a positive contribution on students' academic success, but this contribution was found to be less than the Internet-supported research activities.With this research, after the Internet-supported research activities, how fourth grade students? literacy levels and academic achievement changed were investigated. This research recommends that necessary equipments have to be made available in schools to implement Internet-based learning methods, internet infrastructure has to be improved and the training programs have to be provided to teachers to improve their use and knowledge of the Internet-supported research activities in class settings.Key Words: Internet, Internet-supported research activities, Internet Literacy, Academic Success