The effect of inquiry based learning on gifted and talented students’ mental states in learning the concepts of acids-bases

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of inquiry based learning approach on students’ mental states in learning the concepts of acids-bases. A nonequivalent control group design was used in this study. Eight grade gifted and talented students were participated in the study. The students were applied Mental State Conceptual Learning Inventory (MSCLI) which was developed by Liu, Hou, Chiu and Treagust (2014) and adapted into Turkish by Dinçol Özgür (2016) to determine their mental states in learning the concepts of acids-bases. The inventory includes four factors: emotions, intentions, internal mental representation and external mental representation. During the implementation, inquiry based learning approach was used in the experimental group and the traditional instruction was used in the traditional group. The results showed that there was a statistical significant difference between the experimental and control groups in internal mental representation and external mental representation factors.