Effects of students' learning and thinking styles on geography lesson's academic achievements (12. class)

Learning to learn is a concept that takes attention with the information age and knowledge society. Learning to learn is one of the dimesions which are intended to develop individuals in the affective learining process. Learning to learn can be described as students? knowing the learning strategies and choosing and using them by realising their own learning and thinking styles.Aim of the researh is to determine 12th class students? learning and thinking styles, and to examine whether there is a differences between students? geography success and learning and thinking styles.This reseach has been carried on 160 students who learn geography and attend 12th class of two high schools. In this research, the effects of students? learning and thinking styles on geography success has been determined.Some scales have been carried on students to reach the aims of the research. Kolb?s Learning Styles Inventory was used to learn students learning styles; Stenberg?s Thinking Styles Inventory, whose invalidity and reliability study was done by Sünbül (2004), was used to determine the students? thinking styles, and their 2009- 2010 education year first semester marks were used to display student? success.Data obtained through these scales and the information of the participants are processed to SPSS data enterance pages. SPSS(statictical package for the sociel sciences) 13. 0 was applied to analyze the data. Chi-square, crosstabs, independent t- test, percent and frequency were used ın analysis of data. 0, 05 is taken as level of significance degree. Validity and reliability studies of the scales were done:Level of significance degree of the Thinking Styles Inventory is .87 for the question 94, level of significance degree of the Learning Styles Inventory is .60 for the question 48.According to results, both Thinking Styles Inventory and the the Learning Styles Inventory are successful for measure the target phenomenon.At the end of the research it seemed that there is a meaningful similarity between the learning styles which make change, unite and separate and students? geography success. As for the absorbing learning style, it is founded that there is not a meaningful differences in the view of students? geography success. There is a significant difference between students? learning style and their geography success. Significant differences did not appear among the thinking styles of successful and unsuccessful students in geography. There is not an important difference and significant relationship between individuals? sexes and their thinking styles.Keywords: Learning Style, Thinking Style, Geograpy Achievement.