THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CONCEPTUAL CHANGE TEXTS AND CONTEXT-BASED LEARNING ON STUDENTS’ CONCEPTUAL ACHIEVEMENT

Abstract

The topic of pressure and buoyancy is one that encompasses both invisible and abstract conceptions and about which students have misconceptions. The purpose of this research was to research the effectiveness of three different methods of teaching physics (conceptual change-based, real life context-based and traditional learning on upper-secondary physics students in the 11th grade in terms of conceptual achievement about the pressure and buoyancy topics. In this research, pre-test/post-test quasi-experimental design with non-equivalent control group, involving a 3 (group) × 2 (time) factorial design was used. Experimental 1 Group was given the conceptual change texts on the mentioned subjects, the Experimental 2 Group was offered a learning approach based on real life context-based learning, whereas the control group was given the traditional learning. Data for the research were collected with the "Pressure Conceptual Test". When the results of the research were examined, it was found that the conceptual change text group's conceptual understanding scores were significantly higher than those of the context-based learning group and the traditional learning group. The context-based learning group's conceptual understanding scores were significantly higher than those of the traditional learning group. Key words: conceptual change texts, conceptual achievement, real life context-based learning.