The effect of whole brain approach based activities on student academic achievement and attitudes in social studies teaching

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of the whole brain approach on achievement and attitudes in 7th grade students? social studies. The pre/post-test control group research model was used in this study. The research was conducted with two experimental groups and two control groups in 2006-2007 academic years. Totally 57 seventh grade students experimental group, 28 in experimental group I, 29 in experimental group II and totally 59 seventh grade students control group, 30 in control group I, 29 in control group II participated in this research. The study was conducted during the unite, namely ?Neighbouring Countries of Turkey and The World of Turks? in the social studies course. In the experimental group, students were taught according to the whole brain approach, while in control group students were taught according to the traditional methods. All groups were taught hours per week, twenty four hours in total. The social studies attitude scale and a achievement test were administered to the students as both pre and post-tests before and after the unit. In the data analysis t-test, and both ways analysis of variance (repeated measures) were used. At the end of intervention, an interview session was done students in the experimental group. The data were analysed by SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) and ITEMAN (Item and Test Analysis program) software programs. The results obtained from data analysis are as follows: 1.There was a statistically significant difference in unit pre-test post-test achievement scores between the experimental (I, II and I+II) and control groups (I, II and I+II), in favor of the experimental groups (p<,05). 2.There isn?t a significantly difference in students attitudes towards social studies course pre-test, post-test total scores between the experimental I and control groups I. 3.There is a significantly difference in students attitudes towards social studies course pre-test, post-test total scores between the experimental II and control groups II with experimental (I+II) and control groups (I+II) in favor of the experimental groups [(II and (I+II)] (p<,05). Additionally, during the interview session students expressed a highly positive view about the teaching practices that were structured on the whole brain approach.