Comparison of middle school sixth grade students' conceptual understanding and scientific process skills

In this study, it was aimed to compare the scientific process skills (SPS) and conceptual understanding of middle school sixth grade students. For this purpose, the sound and features unit scientific process skills test (SFUSPST) and the sound and its features unit conceptual understanding test (SFUCUT) developed by the researcher were used as data collection tools. The validity and reliability studies of the tests used in the research were tested with 100 sixth grade students studying at schools affiliated to National Ministry Education (NME) in Giresun province, and then the main study was conducted with 104 sixth grade students studying at schools affiliated with NME in Giresun province. In the validity and reliability analyzes of SFUSPST and SFUCUT, item analysis was performed with the SPSS 22.0 package program, and the difficulty and discrimination values of the items, KR-20 reliability coefficient and independent groups t-test calculations were used. As a result of the research, a valid and reliable SFUCUT with mean item discrimination value of .55, mean item difficulty value of .52 and KR-20 reliability number of .88, mean item discrimination value of .56, mean item difficulty value of .59 and KR-20 reliability Valid and reliable SFUSPST tests with a number of .79 have been brought to the literature. Spearman Brown Correlation values were used to analyze the relationship between students' SFUSPST and SFUCUT scores. As a result of the research, it was found that there was a positive and significant relationship between the science process skills and conceptual understanding of the 6th grade secondary school students and their conceptual understanding, but the relationship between the scores they got from the SPS questions of measurement, using data and creating a model and the scores they got from SFUCUT was not significant. In line with the findings obtained from the research, it is recommended that SFUSPST and SFUCUT, which were developed for the unit of voice and its characteristics, be used in various researches.