The effect of writing to learn activities on 6th grade students' comprehension of area measurement in mathematics

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of writing to learn activities on 6th grade students' comprehension of area measurement and how mathematical structures in their journals change over time. The study was conducted in a middle school in Yeniçağa, in the province of Bolu during the academic year of 2018-2019. There were total 36 sixth grade students, 17 in the experimental group and 19 in the control group. The lessons in both groups were implemented in the same perspective of teaching strategy, which is small group and whole class discussions on word problems. However, while the students in the experimental group were asked to return their answers to the problems in written form and to keep journal in the last 10 minutes of the lesson, the students in the control group practiced on similar problems in the last ten minutes. The whole process lasted 5 weeks with 17 class hours, in which 9 scenario problems were solved by both groups and 13 journals were kept by the experimental group. The research is a mixed-design study, and its quantitative dimension was designed as a quasi-experimental with pre- and post-tests and control group. An academic achievement test about area measurement developed by the author was used to collect data in the quantitative component. To analyze the data collected, a non-parametric test, Mann Whitney, was conducted to explore the mean differences between the groups. In addition, in the qualitative dimension of the study, the level groups determined according to the scorecard notes of the experimental group students were compared in terms of mathematical content in the diaries they wrote. The results of the study showed that writing to learn activities had positive impact on students' comprehension of area measurement in mathematics and improved their ability to use mathematical language.