Abstract:

Attitude is the positive or negative tendency of an individual to any matter. Attitude towards natural science is the emotions, thoughts and behaviors of individuals towards natural science and concepts of natural science. These emotions, thoughts and behaviors may be positive or negative and vary in time. Attitude is influenced by many variables such as age, gender, home and school media, teacher’s personality and instruction technique, previous knowledge and experience, and the attitudes and behaviors of parents. However, the studies performed state that attitude towards natural science is influenced most by laboratory studies. Laboratories are not only places, where students learn theoretical information, but also practices, with which they understand scientific methodology, can behave like a scientist, and develop their practical abilities. Laboratories are media where students work alone or in small groups in cooperation and investigate and examine scientific events. Laboratory studies are carried out in order to verify in laboratory medium the concepts, principles, theories, laws and etc. presented in relation to natural science, to recognize laboratory tools and materials and to gain the skills of using them and establishing an experiment mechanism. There are studies which advocate that laboratory activities develop social relationships and help cognitive development by forming a positive attitude. This study examined whether there was any difference in the attitudes of students at primary education grade 6, who received natural science education in the laboratory and in classroom, towards the laboratory practices of natural science course and in their laboratory perceptions. In this line, the relational model based only on post-test control group was used some 86 students (42 in the experiment group and 44 in the control group) in total constituted the study group. “Attitude Scale for Laboratory Practices of Natural Science Course” and the drawings regarding the laboratory media, which students imagined to have during the practices of natural science course, were used as data collection instruments. Descriptive statistics was used for determining the attitudes of students towards the laboratory practices of natural science course and the difference in their laboratory perceptions. T-test was used so as to find out whether they differed in terms of the specified variables. As a result of the analysis, a significant difference was found in the attitudes of students, who received natural science education in laboratory and in classroom, towards the laboratory practices of natural science course and in their laboratory perceptions.

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