Activity based instruction of the interference and diffraction subjects of light in optics course: Investigation of the effects of the cooperative learning method

By this research, it was intended to develop some activities related to learning of theinterference and diffraction subjects of light in undergraduate level, and to compare theeffects of the cooperative learning method in which these activities were used on the students?success and recalling related to subject, attitudes towards optics course, reliability-significance level related to physics course, and affective characteristics towards teachingmethod and the materials used, with the effects of the traditional teaching.The research was performed on the students who are reading at physics educationdepartment in a public university in 2005-2006 academic year, and who are taking the opticscourse. The research was conducted with a 22-person experiment and 22-person controlgroups by applying pre-test and post test.During the experimental processes, together with the cooperative learningtechniques, activities related to interference and diffraction subjects prepared according toeffective learning tasks were applied on the experimental group, whereas traditional teachingtechniques (lecture, question and answer, discussion) were applied on the control group.Before and after the experimental processes; achievement tests, attitude scale towards theoptics course, and confidence and significance scale of physics course were applied on bothgroups. In addition to this, eight weeks after the end of the application, the achievement testswere applied again on the students as retention test for the delayed measurements. Moreover,at the end of the experimental processes, the students in both groups were made to write downtheir ideas in composition towards the methods used during the lessons.At the end of the research, it was found that there were positive differences in favourof experiment group between the academic achievement and the eight-week retention levelsbetween the cooperative learning and traditional learning class students; and there was nomeaningful difference between the confidence and significance level towards the physicscourse, the attitudes of the students in both group towards the optics course increasedmeaningly, however, there was no meaningful difference between the groups.Moreover, it was revealed from the compositions written down by the students thatthe cooperative learning provided the students to use and develop some certain social skills,and helped them to learn the subjects better, and had more positive effects on affectiveproducts of the students towards the method and materials used as compared to the traditionalteaching. In addition it was determined that the developed materials contributed the studentsto understand and analyze the intereference and diffraction subjects of light better. Besides, itcan be said that the traditional class did not allow to use the developed materials effectively,whereas the cooperative class allowed to create a learning environment where the materialscould be used more effectively and efficiently.