The Effects Of Experiments and Analogy On The Understanding Of The Particulate Nature Of Matter

The purpose of this research is to determine understanding levels of science students related to the particulate nature of matter via experiments supported with analogies. This research designed as one group pretest- posttest design of experimental method. The sample of this study consists of 96 students from science teacher education program at first-year undergraduates an Educational Faculty during the 2013-2014 academic year. In the study, The Particulate Nature of Matter Tests (PNMT1,2,3,4) were used for the data collection. Tests were obtained from open-ended questions and for validity it was applied to expert views. It was implemented PNMTs as pretest before the experiment and posttest after the experiment every week to students at implementation process. Each experiment was supported with the example of analogies. Student evaluation is done by giving points to the drawing. The average of the scores obtained and student’s drawings for each evaluation PNMT was performed considering. According to the results, it was determined that students’ deficiencies related to the particulate nature of matter was reduced from before the experiments to after the experiments.