DIGITALTHE EFFECTS OF WEBQUESTS ON ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS' SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT, ATTITUDE TOWARDS SCIENCE AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS WEB BASED EDUCATION WHILE TEACHING SCIENCE SUBJECTS
1 Kastamonu University (TURKEY)
2 Mugla Sitki Kocman University (TURKEY)
2 Mugla Sitki Kocman University (TURKEY)
About this paper:
Appears in: EDULEARN13 Proceedings
Publication year: 2013
Pages: 4165-4173
ISBN: 978-84-616-3822-2
ISSN: 2340-1117
Publication year: 2013
Pages: 4165-4173
ISBN: 978-84-616-3822-2
ISSN: 2340-1117
Conference name: 5th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies
Dates: 1-3 July, 2013
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Dates: 1-3 July, 2013
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Abstract:
It has been turned to an obligatory situation of being involved in education process for technology with its unique opportunities. Allowing individual to access information quickly and serving an endless information source, web based teaching tools may influence the education process in a positive manner. However, it is argued that the educational activities on the web should be well structured to prohibit the students from getting lost around the endless web space as well as spending his/her time inefficiently or accessing incorrect information. The WebQuest activities, found by Bernie Dodge (1995), are inquiry based activities that students carry on role playing, collaborative working, finding information and problem solving on a web site. WebQuests supports students' active involvement and allows students use their time efficiently as well as forcing students to make analysis, synthesis, decisions and evaluation. The WebQuest activities, having inquiry based structure, fits well in the constructivist curriculum of elementary education.The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of WebQuests on elementary students' science achievement, attitude towards science and attitude towards web supported education in teaching 7th grade subjects (Ecosystems, Solar System). Regarding to this research seventh grade elementary science students have applied "Science Achievement Test", "Attitude Scale Towards Science" and "Attitude Scale Towards Web Supported Education" as pre-test and post-test. Moreover, while the experimental group was using WebQuest activities during the lesson, the control group students used current Science and Technology curriculum based activities. The findings of the research examined and analyzed through the SPSS program. The outputs showed that there emerged a meaningful difference between the control and experimental group favoring the experimental group for science achievement and attitude towards web based education whereas there found no meaningful difference between control and experimental group for attitude towards science.