The self-directed learning process in self-organized environments: An application on Eighth grade students of Technology and Design

The Fiction Section of the 8th Grade technology and design course has a well-known learning output that students should learn the legal protection methods and process. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of the self-directed learning process in achieving this result in self-organized environments. Toward acquiring the date necessary for the study, I made use of the control-group applied model and ran preliminary and final tests. The research has been conducted in the city of Ankara with 32 8th graders of a primary public school directed by the Turkish Ministry of National Education (MEB) in 2011-2012 academic year. This computer-supported research had 15 students in the control group where the method of teaching was teacher-centered (that is the traditional) method, whereas 17 students in the test group where the method of teaching was self-directed learning that created a self-organized learning environment. I applied the tests twice in both groups; before starting to teach the course unit as a preliminary test and after having taught the course unit as a final test. In the process of data analysis, independent samples t-test and paired samples t-tests were used to show the differences between the control and experimental group in the study. The significance value to assess the variables was set as 0,05. Moreover, percentage and frequency were also utilized to analyze personal information of students. According to the results of the study, the experimental group on which the application of "self-learning in self-organized environments" was used was more effective than the control group which used the traditional method while teaching the output ".expresses the ways and the process of legislating the solutions".Key Words : Education, learning, self-directed learning, self-organized environment, traditional method, applied method.