The effect of concept cartoons on the understanding of the balance and unbalanced force concepts of 6th year students

This study carried out to examine the effect of concept cartoons on 6th-grade students' understanding of balanced and unbalanced force concepts. The data of the study were collected from 88 6th grade students, attending a public secondary school in Bağlar district of Diyarbakır during the first semester of the 2017-2018 academic year. 44 of these 88 students were the experimental group and 44 of them were the control group. There were 25 female and 19 male students in the experimental and control groups. Achievement Test, Student Interview Form and Concept Cartoons Worksheet were used as data collection tools. In the research, quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test control group was used. While in the constituted experimental and control groups, during the "Force and Motion" unit, science lessons taught according to the curriculum, additionally material prepared with concept cartoons and student interview form was used in the experimental group. The quantitative data of the research were analyzed using the SPSS package program and the qualitative data were tested with content analysis. According to the analysis of the quantitative data obtained after the implementation of the planned studies and the final test results applied to the experimental and control groups, it was observed that there was no significant difference between the achievement scores of multiple-choice questions, but there was a significant difference in favor of the experimental group between the gap filling, right-wrong, and open-ended questions. It has also a significant difference between the total achievement scores of the test in favor of the experimental group (p <0.05). According to the analysis of the qualitative data, it was observed that the use of concept cartoons positively affected the participation, understanding, and motivation of the students in the experimental group. Concept Cartoons can be applied together with different teaching methods and techniques to increase students' interest in the lesson. In addition to the science lesson, concept cartoons can be included in other courses to improve the self-confidence of introverted students. Key Words: Science, Cartoon, Concept Cartoon, Balanced Force, Unbalanced Force