The effect of cooperative learning approach on the attitudes towards achievement, retention and the lesson at the course of turkish republic revolution history and Ataturk's principles

This study aims to determine the effect of cooperative learning approach (the technique of student teams- achievement divisions) in the ?Towards Modern Turkey? unit on the attitudes towards achievement, retention and the lesson at the 8th grade elementary school course of Turkish Republic Revolution History and Atatürk?s Principles. The study group was comprised of 54 students who were enrolled at an elementary school of Ministry of Education located in Afyonkarahisar Province in 2012-2013 academic years. In the study, pre- and post-test control group design was used. One of the 8th grades was chosen as experiment group and the other as control group. There were 29 and 25 students in the experiment and control groups respectively. In the experiment group, the courses were taught through cooperative learning approach, and traditional teaching method was followed in the control group. To collect the data, the Academic Achievement Test for the course of Turkish Republic Revolution History and Atatürk?s Principles, and the Attitude Scale of for the course of Turkish Republic Revolution History and Atatürk?s Principles were used. The data were analyzed with the help of SPSS 18.00 package program. According to the results of the study, both groups showed a significant development throughout the experiment; however, cooperative learning approach was more effective than the traditional teaching method based on the comparison of the scores in the post-tests of the groups. The retention of the students who were taught with cooperative learning approach was better than the retention of the students who were taught with traditional teaching method. Furthermore, in the experimental group, student attitudes changed positively based on the pre- and post-test scores of the attitude scale. In the control group which traditional teaching method was applied, any significant difference could not be found in their attitude scores based on the pre- and post-tests. When the scores of post-tests were compared of both groups, a significant difference could not be found. Keywords: Cooperative Learning Approach, Traditional Teaching Method, Techniqueof Student Teams- Success Divisions, Retention, Attitude.