Concrete and virtual manipulative-assisted teaching of geometry's impact on the success of building and drawing geometric structures of 5th grade students

The purpose of this study is to determine how concrete and virtual manipulative-assisted education affects 5th grade students' success and to reveal whether students' spatial abilities and levels of geometric thinking affects their success of building and drawing geometric structures or not. A quasi-experimental design was used in the experimental part of the study. In addition the screening research method was adopted. The research application was carried out in 2012-2013 academic year in a primary school in Pendik, Istanbul, on 56 students whose socio-economic condition was average level. For the collection of research data, 21-item "Building and drawing geometric structures achievement test" and the 21-item "spatial ability test" was developed by the researcher. "Geometric objects achievement test" reliability coefficient was found to be.75 and "spatial ability test" reliability coefficient was found to be .81. Van Hiele levels of geometric thinking test was also used by the researcher. As a result of research, building and drawing geometric structures achievement test scores of the students who took concrete and virtual manipulative-assisted education were found to be statistically significant different from building and drawing geometric structures achievement test scores of the students who took primary school mathematics curriculum. The students who were educated in both ways increased their achievements but the students who took concrete and virtual manipulative-supported education were more successful. Additionally, it was found that the students who have high spatial ability are more successful in building and drawing geometric structures. At the same time, according to the findings, the students' success on the building and drawing geometric structures didn't make a statistically significant difference according to the van Hiele levels of geometric thinking. But when the range averages were considered, increasing geometric thinking levels caused increasing success in building and drawing geometric structures achievement test scores. In summary, these results point out that the achievements of students on building and drawing geometric structures are associated with concrete and virtual manipulative-supported education, spatial ability and the Van Hiele levels of geometric thinking. Key words: Using concrete and virtual manipulative, spatial ability, geometric thinking levels, building and drawing geometric structures.