IMPACTS OF BRAIN-BASED LEARNING ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND ATTITUDE IN GEOGRAPHY TEACHING

Özet

This study was designed to determine the impacts of Brain-Based Learning (BBL) approach on the attitude and academic achievement of 11th grade secondary school students in the geography courses in Yüksekova Anatolian Imam Hatip High School in Hakkari Province in the 2014-2015 academic year. Audio-visual materials, videos and presentations were utilized while designing the classroom environment for the BBL approach. A semi-experimental research design was implemented with the participation of 80 students. The experimental and control groups of the research consisted of 40 students in the 11-A branch, 40 students in the 11-B branch, respectively. The 'Geography Course Attitude and Perception Survey' and 'Achievement Test' developed for this study were applied to both the experimental and control groups as posttests. The data obtained in the research were analyzed with the SPSS 22.0 program. The results revealed that the students of the experimental group had a statistically significant higher mean score than the students of the control group on achievement test and attitude survey, pointing out that the BBL teaching approach had a positive effect on the students’ improvement in academic achievement and attitude. In the light of these findings, recommendations were made for the improvement of teaching practices with the use of BBL in designing more efficient teaching practices for the Geography courses in the curriculum.