Effects of Argumentation Based Concept Cartoon Activities on Students' Scientific Process Skills

This study was aimed at examining the effects of argumentation based concept cartoon activities on students’ scientific process skills. These activities were adapted by “Electricity In Our Life” unit in science and technology course. This study was conducted in a semi-experimental design by using pre-test and post-test design with control group. The participants were seventh grade students from a public school in 2012-13, Izmir, Turkey. The experimental group (n=28) and the control group (n=26) were chosen randomly. Data were gathered by “Science Process Skills Scale” consisting of 28 items. This scale covers skills such as “observation”, “classification”, “measurement”, “prediction”, “inference”, “forming hypotheses”, “identifying variables”, “controlling variables and replacement”, “designing experiments”, “saving data”, “data processing and modeling”, “reporting results and interpretation”. The results showed that students in the experimental group were much better in the development of science process skills towards “Electricity In Our Life” unit than the control group.