The Impact of Authentic Materials in the Life Sciences Class on the Learning of Students at Stage I with Moderate Intellectual Disability

The aim of this study is to reveal the effectiveness of using authentic materials for teaching daily weather conditions, which is among the learning outcomes of life science class, to special-needs students with moderate intellectual disability who receive education at Stage I in special education practice schools, in a teaching process involving the participation of their parents. In the present study, we used an action research design, which is one of the qualitative research approaches. The study sample consisted of three parents, and three students with moderate intellectual disability who received education at Erzurum Special Education Practice School in the Yakutiye district of Erzurum in the 2019/20 academic year. As a data collection tool, a rough evaluation form was used as a criterion-dependent assessment tool in the pre-application, post-application and general evaluation stages so as to determine the current status of special education students. On the other hand, parent and teacher interview forms were used to determine their views on the practice, video recording to evaluate the processes, and ABC recording (anecdotal recording) to detect the stimuli that appeared before and after the students’ behaviour and to predict the function of such behaviour. Descriptive analysis technique was used for the analyses in accordance with the qualitative research approach. In the data obtained at the end of the first four weeks, the number of correct responses before the application was found to be very low, while almost all of the answers given after the application were correct. In the general evaluation phase, the correct responses obtained for all questions used during the activity in which various authentic materials were used indicated a positive contribution to students with moderate intellectual disability with respect to learning about daily weather conditions. It can therefore be recommended that authentic materials be used more in the learning processes of students with moderate intellectual disability