The effect of the blended learning environment on academic achievement and student attitude in secondary schools

The main purpose of this research is to examine the effects of blended learning approach on the success and attitudes of the students of secondary schools. Students are provided with an environment in which web-supported learning and face-to-face education are mixed so as to study the effects of blended learning. The research was carried out at Diyarbakır Anatolian High School, in Biology classes of the first term of 2010-2011 school year. Two branches comprised of last grade students of quantitative section were chosen. One of the branches became the control group and the other became the experiment group. It was comprised of 54 participants total, with 19 boys and 8 girls in the experiment group and 18 boys and 9 girls in the control group. The experiment group continued education in blended learning environment and the control group continued in the traditional learning environment. The learning environments were based on Inheritance and lasted 6 weeks. Preliminary test and final test were used in the research for analysis of academic success. The conceptual dimension has been formed by evaluating parameters which were achieved by literature search and opinions from experts. Experimental data was gathered by success test and attitude scale. Success test and attitude scale were handed out to the students before and after the experiment. At the end of the research, a significant difference has been found between the academic success points of the blended learning students and traditional learning students. The effect of gender was also observed during the research. As a result of the preliminary and final academic success test, it was observed that girls had higher academic success overalls than boys in both learning environments. The gender dependent overalls of academic success of the experiment group students were analysed and no significant difference was observed between preliminary and final tests for boy-girl student academic success overall. The gender dependent overalls of academic success of the control group students were analysed and a significant difference was observed between preliminary and final test academic success overall between boys and girls. After the experiment, academic success of the final test of the control group was analysed and it has been found out that this significant difference between the overalls of the boys and girls has disappeared.As a result of the research, it has been observed that blended learning environment is more effective and beneficial when compared to the traditional education in terms of student achievement. In order to explore the effect of the blended learning environment on the attitudes of the students towards Biology, the results of preliminary and final tests were analysed and it has found out that there is a significant difference in their attitudes towards the process of Biology course before and after the research.It has been observed that in blended learning environment, students' interest towars biology increased and they enjoyed the teaching style of the biology classes. It is recommended that, in order to measure the activity of the blended learning approach, it should be used with various design in the various levels of education institutes.Key Words: Blended learning, traditional learning, online learning, face-to-face learning, teaching model.