Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 5, Issue 1, Article 1 (Apr., 2004) Salih ÇEPNİ, Tuncay ÖZSEVGEÇ and Lale CERRAH Turkish middle school students'cognitive development levels in science Previous Contents Next

Findings

In this part, the distribution of subjects' gender, developmental levels in respect of stages and sub-stages, gender and stages cross tabulation and percentage of students' correct answers in the concrete and formal questions regarding school type, is given. Relationships between cognitive development and students' profiles were investigated by means of SPSS. Table 2 shows the participant's cognitive development levels and sub-levels.

Table 2. Distribution of students’ development levels according to stage and sub-stages

Stage	Sub-stage	N*	Frequencies	Percent	Total percent
Concrete	Concrete 2A	387	102	22.9%	86.9%
	Concrete 2B		285	64%
Formal	Formal 3A	58	55	12.4%	13.%
	Formal 3B		3	0.7%
	Total	445			100%

*N refers to number of students

From the table, the majority of the sample (86.9%) is at the concrete stage and a few of them (0.7%) are able to reach formal 3B.

Table 3. Gender and stage cross tabulation

Gender		Concrete 2A	Concrete 2B	Formal 3A	Formal 3B	Total
Male	N	54	155	38	----	247
	Percent of gender	21.9%	62.8%	15.4%	----	100%
Female	N	48	130	17	3	198
	Percent of gender	24.2%	65.7%	8.6%	1.5%	100%
Total	N	102	285	55	3	445

This table shows that majority of male students (62.8%) and female students (65.7%) were found at the concrete 2B level. Only 3 female students (1.5%) are classified as formal 3B thinkers.

Table 4. Percentage of students' correct answers in the concrete and formal questions according to year level and school type

Year level and school type	Concrete%	Formal%
Year 7, Public classrooms (N* = 142)	46.4	38.9
Year 8, Public classrooms (N = 156)	44.1	36.2
Year 7, Private classrooms (N = 88)	52.6	44
Year 8, Private classrooms (N = 59)	68.3	49.4

*N refers to number of students
Table 4 shows both public and private school students' correct answers to the concrete and formal operational questions. The private school sample gives more correct answers both concrete and formal questions (ranging from 44% to 68.3%) than public school peers (ranging from 36.2% to 46.4%).

Table 5. Comparison of gender differences, t and significance level

Stages/Gender	N	Means	S.D	t	p
Male	247	38.62	15.98	.810	.418
Female	198	37.40	15.51

Table 5 shows a comparison of gender regarding students' cognitive development level. Mean scores for the male students are slightly higher than the female students. However, gender differences were not significant at .05 level (t₍₄₄₅₎ = .81, p = .418).

Table 6. Comparison of students' cognitive development with ages and science achievements

Variables	df	F	p
Stages & Ages	4&437	.491	.742
Stages & Achievement	4&437	39.05	.000

One-way ANOVA was used to determine differences between students' cognitive development levels and their ages. F ratio (F(4,437) = .491, p>.05) shows that there is not a significant difference between their age and their cognitive development levels.

Subjects' science achievement scores were determined using the standard test results. In Turkey, almost all science teachers do not set their own papers for their students' assessments. Since the purpose of these teachers is to prepare their students for the LGS, they usually use the standard tests developed by private companies. Reading ability, validity and reliability of these standard tests are done professionally by the experts. Therefore, both public and private science teachers use these types of tests to assess their students' achievements in schools. For this study, we obtain students' science achievement test results from each science teachers in the samples. Subjects' science achievements in the schools and their cognitive development levels in the SCDT were investigated with one-way ANOVA test. Students' cognitive development levels and science achievement scores showed that significant difference (F(4,437) = 39.05, p<.001) were found.

Table 7. Differences between the 7th grade public and private schools students

Schools	N	Means	S.D	t	p
Public 7th classrooms	142	36.32	11.87	-4.04	.000
Private 7th classrooms	78	44.26	17.09

From the comparison of seventh grade middle school students in terms of cognitive development levels between public and private school, a significant difference (t₍₂₂₀₎ = -4.04, p< 0.05) was found.

Table 8. Differences between the 8th grade public and private schools students

Schools	N	Means	S.D	t	P
Public 8th classrooms	154	34.11	14.89	-6.38	.000
Private 8th classrooms	59	48.74	15.19

The 8th grade private middle school students' mean was rather higher than public middle school students mean in the SCDT. Differences between two school types for the same grade were found significant at .05 level (t₍₂₁₃₎ = -6.38, p< 0.05).

 

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