The Investigation of the Effect of Problem Based Teaching Approach on Students' Problem Solving Skills and Academic Achievements in Science Course

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of problem-based teaching of science course on academic achievement and problem-solving skills. In this study, a quasi-experimental design with pre-test, post-test, and control group was used. The experimental group was taught with a problem-based learning approach and the control group was taught with a traditional teaching approach. The study was conducted within the scope of Science Course “Spread of Light” subject, on a total of 30 fifth grade students, 15 in the experimental group and 15 in the control group. In the study, problem-solving inventory and academic achievement test were used as data collection tools and the obtained data were analyzed with independent samples t-test and Wilcoxon rank sum test. According to the results of the analysis, there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in terms of academic achievement and problem-solving skills. The qualitative data of the study were obtained from the second stage of the academic achievement test and it was concluded that the PBL approach made a positive contribution to the students' ability to understand the subject and to make connections between the acquired knowledge