The influences of mathematical thinking skills on the success, problem solving skills and attitudes of students in primary schools at science and technology course

This study investigates the influence of teaching through constructivist learning basedteaching on student groups? academic achievement, attitudes and problem solving skills in theteaching of the unit ?What if there were no pressure?? in Science and Technology course.Besides, attempts are made in this research to determine the problem solving approachesadopted by students with different mathematical thinking skills as well as the sources oferrror. In addition to that, the efficiency of the method and the difficulties encountered inapplication process are also determined through interviews with students of high and lowmathematical thinking skills. In the research process - to make the development of such skillscoursecontents, worksheets for students, classroom environment and evaluation process weredesigned in a way so as to facilitate the development of mathematical thinking skills to thebest possibility.The research data were collected through quantitative as well as qualitative researchtechniques. In obtaining the quantitative research data, an experimental model with pre-test,post-test and control group was used whereas phenomenology was employed in collecting thequalitative research data.The research universe was composed of the 7th year primary school students of the 28primary education schools located in the city centre of Kırsehir province in the 2006-2007academic year. A total of three groups comprising an experimental and two control groupsselected at random from the 7th graders with equal socio-economic levels was made theworking sample of the research for the purpose of collecting quantitative data.In the analysis of the quantitative data, one-way ANOVA was utilized so as todetermine whether there were any significant differences between the average scores of pretest,post-test and permanence test. Percentage and frequency analyses were conducted todetermine the mathematical proficiency level of the experimental group in question. As forthe analysis of the quantitative data, the method of contents analysis was employed. Theresults obtained through interviews and document analyses were presented pursuing ?theApproach of Data Demonstration on Category Basis?.In consequence, constructivist based teaching containing mathematical thinkingactivities was found to have a significant influence over students? academic achievement,attitudes and development of problem solving skills as well as over ensuring the permanenceof these skills. It was found that experimental group students used conceptual knowledge,reasoning and communication skills for all the problems at high levels, and that these skillssupported one another.Students who were able to employ mathematical processes in Science and Technologyproblems at high levels were found to use problem solving processes actively. It was foundthat the students displaying intermediate or low levels of mathematical processes to solveproblems stemmed from such reasons as recognising and identifying a problem partly, makingserious conceptual and calculation mistakes, arriving at conclusions without confirmation andjudgement, giving short explanations on the problem intuitively, not using mathematicalreasoning and formulations. And the students who had failed to display any mathematicalprocesses were found to have no efforts to arrange information and to identify the relationsbetween mathematical concepts.Key Words: Science teaching, mathematical thinking, problem solving.