Comparing the effectiveness of a teaching strategy based on multiple intelligences with a traditional teaching method on 5th grade elementary student's academic achievement and attitude towards science learning

The aim of this research was to compare the effectiveness of a teaching strategy based on multiple intelligences and a traditional teaching method on students’ academic achievement and attitude towards science learning. Totally 53 5th grade students in two different classes (Experimental N = 28 and Control N = 25) participated in the study. They were selected by multi-stage clustered sampling method. The experimental group was instructed by a teaching strategy based on multiple intelligences, whereas the control group was instructed by traditional teaching method. This experimental study took a period of eight weeks. To determine the effectiveness of the teaching strategy based on multiple intelligences over traditional teaching method, an achievement test onscience which consisted of 30 items were administered. Also, an attitude scale toward science, developed by Akpinar et.al (2009) was used. The data was analysed using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and Multiple Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA). The results showed that students who were instructed by a teaching strategy based on multiple intelligences had higher academic achievement than the ones who were instructed by the traditional teaching method. Also, findings showed that students in the experimental group developed more positive attitude towards science learning after the treatment.