Investigation of the effect of the out-of-school learning environments on the teaching of 6th grade systems in our body and health unit in science lesson

In this study, it was aimed to investigate the effects of out-of-school learning environments used in the teaching of the systems in our body and health unit on the academic achievement of 6th grade students, their attitudes towards science course and their understanding of the nature of science. Another aim of the research is to determine the opinions of the students about the out-of-school learning environments they use in their lessons. The research was carried out with 32 students studying in a public secondary school in the İhsangazi district of Kastamonu in the second semester of the 2021-2022 academic year. There are 16 students in the randomly selected experimental group and 16 students in the control group. In the research, sequential explanatory design, which is a type of mixed research method in which quantitative and qualitative research methods are used together, was used. Here, mainly and primarily quantitative data were collected and analyzed. Then, qualitative data were collected, analyzed and interpreted. In order to determine the effect of science teaching using out-of-school learning environments on students' academic achievement, attitudes towards science course and their understanding of the nature of science, a quasi-experimental design with pre-test post-test control group was used. In addition, the case study method was used by collecting qualitative data with a semi-structured interview form in order to get the opinions of eight students selected from the experimental group about the out-of-school learning environments they use in teaching the relevant unit topics. The students in the control group were taught with the 2018 Science Curriculum, while the students in the experimental group were taught using out-of-school learning environments in addition to the current curriculum. The quantitative data of the study were collected with the Systems in Our Body and Health Unit Achievement Test, the Science Lesson Attitude Scale, the Understanding Nature of Science Scale, and the qualitative data with the Semi-Structured Interview Form. Quantitative data collection tools were applied to the students in the experimental and control groups as pre-test and post-test, while the qualitative data collection tool was applied to eight students in the experimental group selected from low, medium and high achievement levels determined according to the achievement test results. The quantitative data obtained from the measurement tools were analyzed with the SPSS program and the qualitative data were analyzed descriptively. As a result of the analysis of the data, a statistically significant difference was found in favor of the students in the experimental group when the academic achievement, attitudes towards the course and understanding of the nature of science of the experimental group students, in which the lessons were taught using out-of-school learning environments, were compared with the control group students. In other words, it has been seen that the out-of-school learning environments used in the teaching of the related unit topics have a significant effect on increasing the success of the students, their development of positive attitudes towards the course, and their understanding of the nature of science. According to the data obtained from the semi-structured interview form applied to eight students selected from the experimental group in order to support these quantitative data obtained, the majority of the students stated that they learned many subjects, they found the lesson more enjoyable, they did not have difficulty in learning the concepts and they were happy to be in out-of-school learning environments. Based on these results, it is recommended that science teachers benefit more from these environments in teaching unit subjects that are suitable for out-of-school learning environments, as in this study.