Abstract:
In science education, laboratories are considerably important because they provide the opportunity for students to perform various hands-on activities. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of laboratory method on students' understanding of the subject of rate in chemical reactions. With this aim, a control group (12 boys, 5 girls) and an experimental group (10 boys, 9 girls) were randomly selected from an Anatolian high school in Trabzon. The study was used a quasi-experimental design. Two different instruments pre-test and post-test were used to collect the data in the present study. While the pre-test consisting of 19 multiple choice items was applied to determine students' preconceptions about the topic under the investigation three weeks before the treatment, the post-test with 19 multiple choice items was implemented to their new levels of understanding two weeks after the treatment. Two master faculty members examined the tests that were piloted with 40 students. Reliability coefficients (KR-20 method) were found 0,79 for the pre-test and 0,70 for the post-test. The experimental group was taught with a teaching method based on laboratory while the control group was taught by the traditional approach. The collected data were analyzed by using the independent samples t test. The results showed that there is a significant achievement difference between the experimental group that was taught with the laboratory teaching method and the control group that was taught with the traditional approach in favor of the experimental group (p<0.05). Nowadays, it was expected the learner to have ability of reaching, rearranging, evaluating and presenting of information. In this respect, it is suggested to quite often use the laboratories in a more active manner.
