New Trends and Issues Proceedings on Humanities and Social Sciences Effect of concept cartoons used in teaching the mole concept

Visual materials that can be used in classes such as PowerPoint presentations, analogies, documentaries and concept cartoons appeal to more than one sense of students and thus enable them to be more active in the learning process and learn more permanently by structuring knowledge in their minds more easily. In concept cartoons used to discover students’ conceptual structures and develop their comprehension, the intention is to create a discussion environment to reach knowledge by discussions without giving the answers directly. With this purpose, primary school candidates were given a variety of pictures and concept cartoons regarding the mole concept in the general chemistry class in order to explore the effect of these images on the concept learning as well as evaluating their view. This study’s result was parallel to the results of the studies that suggest that concept cartoons are effective on improving student success and developing a positive opinion.


Introduction
Today's educational programmes strongly advise that individuals having developed high-order thinking skills, discovering his/her own learning method and responsible for his/her own learning must be raised. To this end, it is argued that various supporting materials for learners to acquire information in classes must be developed. In this respect, the effects of visual materials on learning are as quite many as not to be overlooked. Materials that can be used in classes such as PowerPoint presentations, analogies, documentaries and concept cartoons appeal to more than one sense of students and thus enable them to be more active in the learning process and learn more permanently by structuring knowledge in their minds more easily (Balim, Inel & Evrekli, 2008). In concept cartoons used to discover students' conceptual structures and develop their comprehension, the intention is to create a discussion environment for students to reach knowledge by discussions without giving the answers directly. Concept cartoons are able to increase understanding, attention and interest, improve motivation towards learning and divergent thinking and increase active participation of students in the learning process (Gafoor & Shilna, 2013). According to Dabell (2004), concept cartoons in general; • Improve students' knowledge and make thoughts emerge • Facilitate detailing by deepening thoughts • Offer alternative perspectives • Ensure discussion environment • Allow students to question their thoughts • Reveal misconceptions and instabilities • Direct to research • Increase participation and motivation • Help summarise or repeat the subject.
Concept cartoons used more commonly in science teaching in the recent years (Keogh, Naylor & Wilson, 1998) are pictures of cartoon style that mostly contain daily events, suggest alternative perspectives to scientific topics and invite characters to discuss with each other (Keogh et al., 1998;Ugurel & Morali, 2006). This way, they can discover any concept misperceptions in students and correct and change them with new and right knowledge (Ors, 2007).

Methods
The research was carried out with a total of 83 teacher candidates, 60 female and 23 male. Teacher candidates were asked to find the right or wrong expressions in the concept cartoon and to correct the wrong one. In order to determine these views, firstly a discussion environment was formed and then opinions were taken in writing. The questionnaire was applied to get the opinions about the images. In order to ensure the scope validity of the questionnaire developed by the researcher, expert opinion was consulted. The concept cartoon used in the research is given in Figure 1.

Findings
Firstly, the conceptual learning levels of the candidates were tried to be determined. For this purpose, the frequency and percentage values of the answers given to each expression in the concept cartoon were investigated. The values are provided in Table 1. The findings showed that 65% of the candidates fully learned the general concept. Twenty-five percent of the candidates knew one of the two correct expressions. At the end of the discussion about the concept cartoons, candidates views about this practice were taken. Frequency and percentage values related to opinions are given in Table 2. When the views on images and concept cartoons are examined, more than half the candidates appear to have stated that discussions made over the statements in the concept cartoons enable them to learn more easily (63%) and that discussions help them correct their wrong knowledge (53%). Twenty-three percent of the candidates stated that they found the images childish and that they could be more effective in smaller age groups.

Conclusıon
At the and of this study, findings show that concept cartoons are effective on learning and teaching mole concept, and the students enjoy to learn through concept cartoon. These findings are in line with the study of Golgeli and Saracoglu (2011), Turkoguz and Cin (2013) and Durmaz (2007). At the end of this study, which has parallel results with studies that suggest that concept cartoons are effective on improving student success and developing a positive opinion, it can be suggested that the use of various images for different topics of the chemistry class could be useful.