The effects of reading-writing-application technique and learning together technique on increasing 6th grade students' academic achievement and students' opinions about these techniques

The aim of this study is to identify the effects of Reading-Writing-Application technique, Learning Together technique and Traditional Teaching methods on increasing students' academic achievements in the unit "particular structure of matter" at the science and technology course. In addition, students' written opinions were received from students (RWAG and LTG) about Reading-Writing-Application and Learning Together techniques. This study included 92 students from three different classes at the 6 th grade of a primary school during the 2010-2011 academic year. One of these classes served as the Reading-Writing-Application Group (RWAG), using group Reading-Writing-Application Technique, the second one served as the Learning Together Group (LTG), using the Learning Together technique, and the last one served as the Traditional Teaching Group (TTG), using the Traditional Teaching methods. The main instruments for obtaining data were the Academic Achievement Test (AAT) and Students' Written Opinions (SWO). Academic Achievement Test was applied to the all treatments groups but Students' Written Opinions was only applied RWAG and LTG. The data obtained on instruments were evaluated by using descriptive statistic, one-way variance analysis ANOVA and content analysis according to qualitative approach. It was concluded from the research results that the teaching of the unit "particular structure of matter" via the Reading-Writing-Application technique was more effective in increasing students' academic achievements compared to Learning Together technique and the Traditional Teaching methods. In addition, the written opinions of RWAG students and LTG students showed that the students have some negative opinions about Cooperative Learning Method.