Özet:

The purpose of the study was to detect opinions of the students about the implementation of six thinking hats and attribute listing techniques related in practice science course. Data were collected via an interview form and open-ended questions constructed by researcher. The results of the study revealed that the primary school students (6th, 7thand 8th grade) and pre-service science teachers had positive perceptions about these techniques. Summary Continuous changes and developments mandate that schools and educators should place a greater emphasis on developing creativity skills to enhance science and technology literacy of individuals and society. Creative thinking is necessary to find new solutions and creating new products. Creativity also plays a significant role in many scientific studies. People who use their creative ability can apply their scientific knowledge and this way the knowledge acquired in schools might be used to produce valuable products rather than staying idle. Because of this, one of the most important goals of science education is to promote creative thinking starting from elementary levels to students who may lead the society in the future. Problem The purpose of this study was to determine perceptions of the students about the implementation of two of the creative thinking techniques; six thinking hats and attribute listing in science course. Method The sample of this research was the 6th, 7th and 8th graders studying in primary schools in Ankara. The pre-service science teachers of these students had theoretical and practical information about six thinking hats, and attribute listing. The research was conducted in the spring semester of the 2002-2003 school year. 97 primary students' perceptions about six thinking hats and 115 students' opinions about attribute listing were determined by using a structured interview form. This structured interview form developed by the researcher about both of the techniques contained 15 Likert type items (strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, strongly disagree). Views and opinions of 3 experts were asked for the face validity of the test. The qualitative data were gained from open ended opinions of 24 students, applicator and observer pre-service teachers about the applications of these two techniques. The pre-service science teachers selected from the fourth graders applied the techniques during their training period in the schools. The six thinking hats technique was mostly preferred for the science lessons including problem solving, discussions and daily life subjects. Renewable and un-renewable energy sources, global warming and its effects, nutrition and sport, improvement of environmental awareness are some of the topics that this technique was used for. This way the students had an opportunity to express their ideas with respect to the colors of their hats. At the end of the discussion especially the ones having the green hats were reinforced to express their opinions in order to determine the most effective result and produce solutions. Since attribute listing is a technique for the improvement of the product quality, there were applications based on this purpose during this research. For example, various uses and the improvement of the technical quality of the simple machines such as screwdriver, scissors, bobin, spinning wheel…etc, and current technological vehicles such as television, computer, telephone, etc. were some of the topics that this technique was used. Both of these applications were observed by another pre-service teacher. The data gained from the structured interview forms was analyzed by using descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages. In addition, descriptive analysis was used for the qualitative data gathered from the interviews with the primary school students and pre-service teachers. Results and Discussions The results of the application of six thinking hats indicated that primary school students believe because they were able to concretize the abstract concepts that they had been in trouble to learn, they learned better and had fun during this learning period. As the students stated, during this application process they felt themselves so comfortable that they explained their ideas without any hesitation. Production of different types of ideas also resulted in the respect to their classmates' thoughts in their classroom. They were strongly agree with the application of this technique that was perceived as an amusing and teaching game by themselves not only in science courses but also in all of their courses. The results of the application of attribute listing show that the students think they learned new information when they were having fun. Similar with the students' opinions about the six thinking hats, they also mentioned that they felt themselves comfortable and expressed their ideas without any hesitation. They also stated that they learned to respect to the thoughts of each other in an environment that the ideas might be explained independently. Moreover, realizing how wide their dreaming world was they learned how to produce various ideas based on these fancies. Most of them stated that the scientists may use this technique in order to make new innovations. Conclusions The results of the study revealed that the primary school students (6th, 7thand 8th grade) and pre-service science teachers had positive opinions about each of the techniques. There are also other studies supporting these results. According to these studies, it was revealed that because students learn long lasting information, have opportunity to express their opinions in a comfortable environment, produce various opinions, and have fun, the learning environments based on the creative thinking techniques motivate the students for learning (De Souza Fleith, 2000; Keddie, 2002; Koray, 2003; Simpson, 2002). It may be suggested that the techniques based on creative thinking such as six thinking hats and attribute listing might be used systematically during the process of science education. Moreover the application of these techniques should be used for not only science courses, but also other courses, such as, mathematics, history, and geography.

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