Investigation of the scientific skills development process of 7th year students through project, model, experiment

The aim of this study is to investigate the process of developing scientific skills by applying Project, Model and Experiment activities in seventh grade students in Science course. The study also aims to take views about the objectives of the topic ; ''Reproduction, Growth, Development in Living Beings'' taking part in 7th grade science education curriculum, on students academic success, reflective thinking skills, motivation towards learning science and scientific process skills and also investigating the effect of topic mentioned by experimental group and to see the difference between the control group and the experimental group. The experimenal group and the control group has been established by the Readiness Test. Before studying on experimental and control groups established 'Reproduction, Growth and Development Achievement test', 'Developing scientific process skills test', 'Motivation scale towards science education' and 'Reflective Thinking Scale' have been applied as pre-test. In the education of the subject on experimental group students, the teaching design including Experiment, Project and Modelling activities have been practised. During this period the students in experimental group have been applied, one of the forms which are 'students evaluation', 'student observation' and 'project evaluation to investigate their skills in the developmental process. On the other hand, control group students have been applied existing science education curriculum and the science education course book of Ministry of Education has been used as course material. In the end of the study, the students in the experimental and control groups have been applied 'Reproduction, growth and development in living beings test', 'scientific process skills test', 'the scale of reflective thinking skills test', 'the motivation scale towards science education as post test. Besides, the students only in experimental group have been asked to evaluate each other in written way after the activity in the process.The findings obtained at the end of the research are observed that the students have been improved in the aspect that the activities such as doing Project, Model and Experiment are effective in the process of developing scientific skills of the students in experimental group. Furthermore, it has been determined that there is a significant difference between students in the experimental group which is more successful than the students in control group in the terms of academic success, reflective thinking, scientific process skills and motivation towards learning science education.