A Study on the Efficacy of the Integrated Program Design on Teaching the Theme of “Science and Technology”

Abstract

This study was made in order to determine the impact of the education, based on the integrated curriculum that was developed for the theme of “Science and Technology”, on the academic success of the students and the views of the students and teachers, participating in the study, on the integrated curriculum. In this study, based on associating five different lessons, it was examined whether information that is learned in different lessons can be transferred, or not. The study was performed at a middle school, at a middle-class socioeconomic level in the province of Ankara, in the academic year of 2014-2015. In this study, in which the quantitative and qualitative research methods were used together, the mixed method was adopted. In the quantitative aspect of the study, the experimental pattern, with pretest-posttest control groups, was used. In the study, the social studies, Turkish language, sciences, visual arts and elective folk culture lessons were studied with the experimental group students by being associated with each other. And in the control group, the existing lessons were studied according to teachers’ routine lesson plans with a disciplinary concept. As the academic success test was used in the quantitative aspect of the study, the semi-structured interviews were made with the students and the teachers who conducted the lessons of the experimental group, in the qualitative aspect. Furthermore, the students’ study documents, researcher field notes and observations were benefited from as the qualitative data collection instruments. For the analysis of the quantitative sub-problems of the study, SPSS 17.0 package program was used. In the analysis of the quantitative data, two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used; and content analysis in the analysis of the qualitative data. According to the analysis of the obtained data, it was determined that the lessons, performed with the integrated curriculum, were more effective than the existing one, in terms of academic success. As the result of the interviews that were made with the students, it was found that the students liked the lessons, studied with the integrated curriculum model, more. Together with this, it was concluded that the integrated curriculum -based education was more effective with regard to the teaching of the complex subjects. It was also found in the study that the students transferred information that they learned in a lesson to another lesson. It is thought that this study will give an idea to both researchers and teachers, who are the appliers of the lessons, at the point of associating and applying different lessons, based on the integrated curriculum in particular.