The effect of toy supported teaching in the teaching of basic knowledge of animals in secondary schools graduate science course

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sefa PEKOL The main purpose of this research is to increase the success in science education and reveal the effects of teaching science with toys on the academic achievement of the students in secondary schools in Ağrı. This study contains Classification of Creatures unit in 5th grades by means of the development of different teaching methods. The population of the research is composed of the students in Patnos, Ağrı province, and the sample of the research is composed of in 5th grade students in a village in Patnos, Ağrı. In the study, both quantitative and qualitative patterns were used. In this context, experimental design was used in the quantitative part of the study, and semi-structured interview form was used in the qualitative part. In the experimental method, the achievement test to collect the research data was applied to groups that organized twenty six students after objective election, as a pretest before the experiment. As a result of teaching with toys to the experimental group, and also traditional teaching to the control group students, achievement test was applied to both the experimental and the control groups. Qualitatively, students' interest in the course, focus, peer communication and motivation were evaluated through interview forms. Achievement test has five sections: true-false sentence detection, gap filling, table filling, classic question, four-choice multiple choice thirty questions. While there was no significant difference among the experimental and control groups in true – false questions, a significant difference was found (between the experimental group and control group) in favor of the experimental group in other question groups. In the analysis of the quantitative data, independent t-test was performed by using SPSS program. Descriptive analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. To conclude, this study shows that teaching science with toys improves the academic achievement of students and affects the classroom environment positively.