USE OF SCIENCE LOGS IN DETERMINING THE RELATION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND DAILY LIFE

Abstract

In this study, science logs were used in order to investigate students' skills to relate science and daily life. The purpose of the study was to determine what kind of relations students can generally form between science and daily life without choosing any subject from science and technology curriculum and to specify their opinions about explaining these relations through science logs. Students' science log writing practice lasted for 3 weeks. The study group, which was determined through convenient sampling-one of purposeful sampling methods- comprised of 12 6th grade students in Selçuklu district of Konya. The study was designed in a purely qualitative fashion for all steps of sample selection, data collection and analysis. The technique that was preferred in the data collected through science logs were correspondence. Students' opinions about relating science to daily life by using science logs were taken through semi-structured interviews. For analyzing the study data, descriptive analysis was performed through NVivo 8 Data Analysis Program. According to the study results, it was determined that students could generally identify the subjects related to science but that they had difficulty forming a relation between what they came across and science. Students stated that they had pleasure in writing science logs and that although in the first couple of days they had difficulty in understanding whether what they came across was related or not, they liked it later on.