DETERMINING AND COMPARING THE SCIENCE PROCESS SKILL LEVELS OF 5th AND 8th GRADE STUDENTS

Authors : Jale Kalemkuş, Şule Bayraktar, Fatih Kalemkuş

Pages : 79-83

View : 280 | Download : 3548

Publication Date : 2016-09-01

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :The aims of this study are to determine and compare the levels of scientific process skills of 5 th and 8 th grade students. The skills which were examined specifically for this research are as following: Observation, classification, measurement, recording data, establishing space and number relationships, predicting, identifying variables, interpreting data, inference, hypothesizing, modelling, and experimenting.   Research was conducted with a total of 200 students, 100 students at 5 th grade and 100 students at 8 th grade, attending to a middle school in the province of Kars. In this research the survey method was utilized. Science Process Skills Test (SPST) consisting of multiple choice questions administered to students of each grades to determine their level of science process skills. Data was examined by utilizing frequency and percentage distributions.   The findings show that the percentage of success achieved by the 8 th grade students is higher than the 5 th grade students. In addition, both 5 th graders and 8 th graders’ performance level for experimenting and establishing space and number relationships are lower compared to other process skills. Findings also showed that 5th grade students are better in recording data, and 8 th graders are better in creating a model in compare to other science process skills.
Keywords : science process skills, teaching science