Researching the effect of the instruction of the transformational geometry assisted with the concrete models on the eighth grade students' attitudes towards geometry and spatial thinking

The aim of this research is to investigate the effect of concrete models assisted instruction on 8th grade students? spatial thinking and attitudes towards geometry on transformational geometry instruction, and the relation between students? spatial ability and attitudes towards geometry.The pretest-posttest control group experimental design was adopted by the research. This research was conducted with 56, 8th grade students from a school at Seferihisar in İzmir in the first term of 2010-2011 academic years. The students from two different classrooms at 8th grade in application school were experiment and control groups. There were 28 students in the experiment group and 28 students in the control group.In the research quantitative approach was adopted. The data were collected by Middle Grade Mathematics Project Spatial ability Test and Geometry attitudes Scale. Research data have been obtained throuph using SPSS 15.0. The data were analyzed using Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test, Independent Samples t-test, Paired t-test and Pearson Correlation Test.According to the research findings, concrete models assisted instruction method didn?t raise the levels of spatial ability and students? attitudes towards geometry in transformational geometry instruction. In addition to this there wasn?t a relation between students? spatial thinking and attitudes towards geometry in concrete models assisted instruction class but there was a positive relation between students? spatial thinking and attitudes towards geometry in traditional instruction class.Keywords: Geometry Instruction, Transformational Geometry, Concrete Models, Spatial Ability