The Effect of Science Cartoon Reading on the Levels of Interest in Science, the Academic Achievements and the Scientific Attitudes of Elementary Students

과학만화 독서가 초등학생의 과학 흥미도, 학업성취도 및 과학적 태도에 미치는 영향

Various data and methods are necessary to help students understand the science subject, and have interest in it. Most students like cartoons, and more easily memorize their contents. The purpose of this study was to verify the effects of science cartoon reading on the academic achiements, the levels of interests in science and scientific attitudes of elementary students The study subjects were four classes of the 6th grade of G elementary school in U city. Two classes were experimental group and the others were comparison group. The students of the experimental classes were encouraged to read science cartoon related to class contents at the beginning and ending for 5 minutes respectively in instructional time. And those of the comparison classes received general science lesson. The results of this study were as follows. First, the experimental classes encouraged to read science cartoon marked higher average score than comparison classes in post-test and the difference was meaningful (p<.05). This meant science cartoon reading treatment had the effect of improvement of the levels of interest in science of student. Second, the experimental classes marked higher average score than comparison classes in post-test but didn't show meaningful difference. This meant science cartoon reading treatment didn't have the effect of improvement of academic achievement of students in our study. Third, the experimental classes marked higher average score than comparison classes in post-test and showed the meaningful difference(p<.05). This meant science cartoon reading treatment had the effect of improvement of scientific attitudes of students. From the results thus far, we could tell that science cartoon reading had positive effects on the levels of interest in science and scientific attitudes of students in our study.