The Effects of Out-of-School Learning Settings Science Activities on 5 th Graders ’ Academic Achievement *

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of lessons conducted in out-of-school learning settings on 5th graders science achievement within the scope of a guidance material that was prepared to be used in out-of-school learning settings in accordance with the “Let’s Solve the Riddle of Our Body” chapter objectives. The pretest / posttest equalized control group d esign, which is one of the quasi-experimental designs, was used in this study. The sample of this study was composed of a total of 31 5th grade students (15 were in experimental group, 16 were in control group) that were selected from secondary schools in the first semester of the 2015-2016 academic year in Tokat Province. Let’s Solve the Riddle of Our Body Chapter Achievement Test (LeSROBAT) was administered before and after the implementation of the guidance material to measure the students’ achievements and reten tion. The lessons were conducted as suggested by the current curriculum in the control group. The data were analyzed using independent samples t-test and covariance analysis (ANCOVA). As a result of the analyses, it was found that the LeSROBAT post-test scores of experimental group were significantly higher than the control group. Within this context, it was concluded that the out-of-school learning settings positively contributed to academic achievement and the guidance material that was developed within the scop e of this study was effective. The results of retention test analyses didn’t reveal any significant difference between the posttest and retention test scores of experimental and control groups. When the LeSROBAT retention test scores were examined, it was obser ved that the scores of experimental group was higher than the control group.


Introduction
Human being has needed to learn since its existence.The increasing population has introduced the concept of 'school', which aims to inform people formally.The Turkish Language Association (1994: 558) defines the school as 'the place where the collective education and ins truction is offered in a variety of levels starti ng from literacy.The information provided in schools is organized in a specific plan and program, and limited by the school walls.Vygotsky developed a sociocultural viewpoint about learni ng bas ed on his theoretical study on child development.According to him, learning and development is transmitted from a social context to individual unders tanding; in other words, the knowledge is a phenomenon that is firstly met in the interactions with people then associated with students (Kozulin, 2003;Wertsch, 1991 as cited in Zhai, 2015).With reference to this notion, it can be inferred that the individual should be in an interaction with the social environment for learning and development.Out-of-school learning settings are considered to be the best environments where the individual can interact with the social environment.
Out-of-school learning settings are defined as the trips and activities that are conducted beyond the school walls in a planned and programmed way in direction with specific purposes (LacinSimsek, 2011).Out-of-school learning settings involve museums, planetariums, nature camps, aquariums, factories, etc. as well as communication devices such as internet, phones, etc. (Hofstein and Ros enfeld 1996).Although the out-of-school learning setting reminds the unplanned (informal) education, it involves the education that is composed of planned (formal) activities.Formal education is an education system that is extremely institutional ized and hierarchically structured stages from preschool education to postgraduate education (Jeffs and Smith, 1990).According to Ramey -Gassert (1997), learning in school is free from the real life, has littl e association with real events and objects, a nd has little contribution to students' socialization.On the other hand, out-of-school learning i ncreases desire to l earn, motivation and attitude, and contributes to students' socialization (Ramey -Gassert, Walberg and Walberg, 1994).Out-of-school learning settings have positive effects on students cognitively and affectively since they are the environments where the students freely question and reach the knowledge on their own (Turkmen, 2010).Within this context, the National Research Council (1996) argues that the science of school should go beyond the school walls and involve the social resources.A body of research showed that the s tudents that participated in out -of-school learning activities and reinforced by in -school activities were successful cognitively and affectively when the out-of-school activities were planned well (Anderson, Kisiel, and Storksdieck, 2006;Orion and Hofstein, 1991).Within this context, the effect of lessons carried out in out -ofschool settings within the framework of a gui dance material which was prepared in accordance wi th the objectives of 5 th grade 'Let's Solve the Riddle of Our Body' chapter of 2013 Science Curriculum on 5 th graders' academic achiev ement in science courses was examined.In this direction, the research questions below were tried to be answered; On the 'Let's Solve the Riddle of Our Body' chapter in out-of-school learning settings;

•
Is there a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups' scores obtained from the academic achievement pretest?
Is there a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups' scores obtained from the academic achievement posttest?
Is there a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups' scores obtained from the retention test?• How are the achievement levels of experimental and control groups in pretest, posttest, and retention test about the 'Let's Solve the Riddle of Our Body' Chapter?

Methodology
The pretest / posttest equalized control group design, which is one of the quasi-experimental designs, was us ed i n this study.In the pretes t / posttest equalized control group design, which group will be the experimental or control is chosen through nonrandom assignment.So the group to be studied is decided beforehand.Both groups are administered a pretest.The experimental group is interv ened while there is no intervention for the control group, and both groups are administered a post tes t (Buyukozturk, KilicCakmak, Akgun, Karadeniz, and Demirel, 2014).In educational research, quasi-experimental designs are frequently used since it is not possible to make random assignments to experimental and control groups most of the time (Metinel al., 2015).Accordingly, pretest and posttest were admi nistered to both experimental and control group in this study.The experimental design can be viewed in Table 1.The Sample Group A total of 31 5 th graders who were studying at secondary schools affiliated to Ministry of National Education (MONE) participated in this research.The schools that were involved in the research were chosen based on the similarities in the schools' physical capaciti es, the science teachers' characteristics such as gender, education level, experi ence, classroom size, and students' socio-cultural characteristics.The experimental and control groups were chosen through convenience method.This method is preferred since it prevents the loss of time, money, and labor (Buyukozturk et al., 2014).Of all the participants, 15 (10 male, 5 female) were in the experimental group, while 16 (7 female, 9 male) were in the control group.

Data Collection Tools
A materi al that would guide the out-of-school activities was prepared beforehand.This material involved the 'Let's Solve the Riddle of Our Body' chapter of the science curriculum, which was started to be implemented i n 2013 -2014 academic year.This chapter was chosen because all of the objectives in this chapter were suitable for out-of-school learning s ettings.Let's Solve the Riddle of Our Body Achi evement Test (LeSROBAT) was developed and administered before and after the implementation of guidance material in order to determine the s tudents' academic achiev ement and retention.This test was composed of items covering the aforementioned chapter's objectives.
LeSROBAT is a test compos ed of 30 multiple-choice items.During the development process of the test, a list involving 13 objectives were created.Thes e objectives already took place in curriculum.Then, 7 more objectives were added to the list since they were appropriate to this research's purpose.These lists were revised twice based on a science education expert.Thes e 20 objec tives were planned to be measured using 36 items.Afterwards, test items were meticulously generated, and a table of specifications was created.Table of specificationsprovide an evidence for the content v alidity at the same time.The cognitive section of Bloom's taxonomy was used during the preparation of the table of specifications.Then, the items were revised by a science teacher one more time considering the tabl e of specifications for the final time.The test was reviewed by an academic on science education and two science teachers who had at least 5 years of teaching experience in terms of content and the template.Moreov er, 2 experts on Turkish language also reviewed the test in terms of linguistic and spelling rules.Some modifications were made bas ed on the feedbacks.The developed LeSROBAT was admi nistrated to 6 students as a pilot s tudy.During the pilot s tudy, it was observed that a course hour (40 mins) was enough for s tudents to compl ete the test.Whether the students comprehend the words, sentences, figures, etc. in the test was examined and their opinion regarding the difficulty was taken.
After this process, LeSROBAT was administered to 76 students from 5 different schools who completed the 'Let's Solve the Riddl e of Our Body' chapter.Item discrimination index and difficulty index for each item was calculated.As a result of this analysis, some of the items were excluded from the tes t, while some of them were revised.The findings regarding the LeSROBAT analysis are presented in Table 2.When the Table 2 was examined, it can be s een that the median and the mean scores were close.However, the mod was bigger than medi an and the mean.Thus, it can be stated that the distribution was left skewed.The mean difficulty, standard deviation, and KR-21 reliability were calculated as .64, 5. 99 and .839,respectively.These findings showed that the developed test could be used.
The first version of the tes t was compos ed of 36 items.All of them were multiple -choice questions.Although some items were involved in the objectives, they were excluded from the tes t due to low item discrimination index.Some items were revised based on expert opinions.Considering the representation of each objective byat least one item, the final version of the test was composed of 30 items.

Procedure
At the beginning of 2015-2016 academic year, LeSROBAT was administered to experimental and control groups as the pretes t.Then the experimental group was implemented the out-of-school activities while the control group continued the regular instruction provided in the curriculum.The out -of-school activities are pres ented in the flowchart in Figure 1.

Figure 1.Out-of-school learning setting flowchart
LeSROBAT was administered to experimental and control group as the posttes t after the end of the 'Let's Solve the Riddle of Our Body' chapter.LeSROBAT was administered to experimental and control group 9 months after the posttest as the retention test.
European Journal of Educational Research455

Data Analysis
Upon the collection of the data, skewness and kurtosis values were exami ned to check the normality of the data obtai ned from control and experimental group.A skewness value between -1.96 and +1.96 with a sample smaller than 50 participants is an indicator of normal distribution (Kim, 2013).The skewness values calculated i n this research were observed to be wi thin this range.Moreover, Kolmogrov -Smi rnov test was also used to check the normality.p>.05 for all tests were found through this analysis.Accordingly, the data were observed to distribute normally.T he data obtained the pretes t using LeSROBAT were analyzed using independent samples t-test.Independent samples t-tes t is used to determine whether the differences between the means of two distinct samples are significant or to compare two independent groups on a continuous outcome (Secer, 2013).The data obtained from the posttest using LeSROBAT were analyzed using one-way covariance analysis (ANCOVA).ANCOVA is an analysis technique that reveals whether there is a significant difference between the mean scores of two or more independent groups based on a common variable (Secer, 2013).ANCOVA was used especially to control the pretest scores.The data analysis process was completed making use of the aforementioned analyses.

Findings
The academic achievement test was administered as the pretest to control and experimental groups to determine the students' l evels before the i ntervention.The findings of i ndependent samples t -test of the pretest results are presented in Table 3.As can be seen in Table 3, it was determined that there wasn't a significant difference between the scores of experimental and control groups (t (.05:29) =. 897).The groups were compared using one -way covariance analysis (ANCOVA) in order to test the effect of intervention by assuming the pretest as the dependent variable.
The findings of ANCOVA of the posttest results regarding the experimental and control groups are presented in Table 4.As can be seen in Table 4, the mean scores of experimental and control groups were calculated as 24.53 and 19.00, respectively.However, when the pretest scores were controlled as the common variable, some changes on the posttest scores were observed.The corrected mean scores of experimental and control groups were 25.04 and 18.53, respectively.The results of ANCOVA conducted to determi ne whether the difference between the groups' posttest scores was significant or not are presented in Table 5.According to the findings in Table 5, a significant difference between the groups was determined when the experimental and control groups were compared [F(1-28)= 22.99 p<.05].
The correct answers of experimental and control groups' on posttest were compared.The results can be viewed in Graph 1.

Graph 1. The number of correct answers given by the experimental and control group in the posttest
The posttest was admi nistered to 15 and 16 students from experimental and control group, respectively.When the Graph 1 is examined, it can be seen that the experimental group gave more or equal number of correct ans wers to all questions except for the questions 8 and 26 compared to control group.Both the 8 th and the 26 th ques tions were from the "food and its properties" part.The 8 th question was about the fresh and natural food, while the 26 th ques tion was about the harms of smoking on environment.The bigges t difference between the experimental and control group was among the answers given to the 10 th , 13 th , 21 st , 22 nd , and 24 th questions.The 10 th question was from the "food and i ts properties" part was about fresh food.The 13 th question was from the "digestion of food" and was about showing the place of organs that have a role in diges tion on the model.The 21 st and 22 nd ques tions were from the "urinary in our body" part and were about accessory digestive organs.The 24 th ques tion was from the "food and its properties" part and was about diseases caused by the lack of vitamin.
Nine months after the posttest, a retention test was administered to experimental and control group students.Independent samples t-test was performed to compare the groups' scores.The results can be seen in Table 6.When the Table 6 is examined, it can be seen that one student from the experimental group di dn't take the test, which means a 5% decrease in the experimental group.The analysis showed no significant difference between the experimental group's posttes t and retention test scores at the p<.05 level.Similarly, no significant difference was observed between control group's posttest and retention test scores at the p<.05 level.Independent samples t-test was conducted to determine whether there was a significant difference between the retention test scores of experimental and control groups.The results can be seen in Table 7.As can be s een in Table 7, the retention test scores of experimental group students were significantly higher than the scores of control group students (t(.05:28)= 3.65).
The correct answers of experimental group's on pretes t, posttes t, and retention tes t were compared.The resul ts can be viewed in Graph 2 and 3.

Graph 2. The number of experimental group students with correct answers to the questions in LeSROBAT pretest, posttest, and retention test
When the Graph 2 is examined, it can be seen that the most correct answers were given to 9 th and 12 th questions i n the pretes t by the experimental group students.Both the 9 th and 12 th questions were from the "food and its properti es" part.The 9 th question was about fresh and clean food, while the 12 th ques tion was about the harms of smoking and alcohol.The questions 13, 22, and 28 were those which had the least correct answers.The 13 th question was from the "digestion of food" part and was about recognition of organs that had a rol e in digestion.The 22 nd and 28 th questions were from the "urinary in our body" part.The 22 nd question was about the existence of different uri nary ways in the body, while the 28 th question was about the health of urinary system.
the posttest, the most correct answers were given to 1 st , 14 th , and 21 st questions by the experimental group s tudents.The 1 st ques tion was from the "food and its properti es" part and was about the necessity of nutrition for all creatures.The 14 th question was from the "digestion of food" part and was about tooth ty pes.The 21 st ques tion was from "uri nary in our body" part and was about the existence of different urinary ways in the body.The questions 13 and 18 were those which had the leas t correct answers.Both of them were from the "digestion of food" part.The 13 th question was about recognition of organs that had a role in digestion, while the 18 th question was about the transmission of nutri ents after digestion through blood.
A total of 14 participants took part in the retention test.The mos t correct answers were given to 2 nd , 12 th , and 14 th questions by the experimental group students.The 2 nd and 12 th questions were from the "food and its properti es" part.The 2 nd question was about the food containing different types of vitamins, while the 12 th question was about the harms of smoking and alcohol.The 14 th question was from the "diges tion of food" part and was about gingival.The questions 13 and 18 were those which had the least correct answers.Both of them were from the "di gestion of food" part.The 13 th question was about recogni tion of organs that had a role in digestion, while the 18 th ques tion was about the transmission of nutrients after digestion through blood.
It was observed that the questions 12, 18, 19, and 29 had more correct answers in the pos ttest than the retention test by the experimental group students.12 th question was from the "food and its properties" part and was about the harms of smoking and alcohol.The 18 th and 19 th questions were from the "digestion of food" part.The 18 th ques tion was about the transmission of nutrients after diges tion through blood, while the 19 th question was about the transmission of nutrients through blood.The 29 th question was from the "food and i ts properti es" part and was about the importance of a balanced and regular diet in human health.Additionally, 15 participants took the posttes t while 14 students took the retention tes t.In this direction, i t is considered that the questions 2, 3, 5, 11, 15, 16, 20, and 25 would have had more or at least equal number of correct answers in the pos ttest if that student had taken the retention test because there was only one correct answer difference between the posttest and the retention test.
The correct answers of control group's on pretest, posttest, and retention can be seen in Graph 3.

Graph 3. The number of control group students with correct answers to the questions in LeSROBAT pretest, posttest, and retention test
When the Graph 3 is examined, it can be seen that the most correct answers were given to 1stand 12 th questions i n the pretes t by the control group students.Both the 1stand 12 th questions were from the "food and its properties" part.The 1 st ques tion was about the necessity of nutrition for all creatures, while the 12 th question was about the harms of smoking and alcohol.The ques tions 4, 18, 21, 22, and 25 were those which had the least correct answers.The 4thques tion was from the "food and its properties" part and was about the water and minerals that were in every nutrient.The 18 th ques tion was from the "di gestion of food" and w as about the transmission of nutri ents after digestion through blood.The 21 st and 22 nd questions were from the "uri nary in our body" part and were about the existence of different urinary ways in the body.The 25 th question was from the "diges tion of food" and was about the concept of digestion.
In the posttest, the most correct answers were given to 1 st , 14 th , 17 th , and 26 th questions by the control group students.The 1 st ques tion was from the "food and its properti es" part and was about the necessity of nutrition for all creatures.The 14 th and 17 th questions were from the "digestion of food" part.The 14 th question was about placing tooth types on the model.The 17 th question was about tooth health and cleani ng.The 26 th question was from "food and i ts properties" part and was about the harms of smoking and alcohol.The questions 13 and 22 were thos e which had the least correct answers.The 13 th question was from the "digestion of food" part and was about recognition of organs that had a role in digestion.The 22 nd question was from the "uri nary in our body" part and was about the existence of different uri nary ways in the body.
The most correct answers were given to 11 th , 14 th , 15 th and 17 th questions by the control group students.The 11 th question was from the "food and its properties" part and was about the harms of smoking and alcohol.The 14 th , 15 th , and 16 th questions were from the "diges tion of food" part.The 14 th question was about placing tooth types on the model.The 15 th question was about different tooth types.The 17 th question was about the tooth health.The questions 21 and 24 were thos e which had the leas t correct answers.The 21 st question was from "uri nary in our body" and was about the existence of different urinary ways in the body.The 24 th ques tion was from the "food and its properties" part and was about the diseases that could be caused by vitamin deficiency.
When the number of control group students who gave correct answers to 2 nd , 13 th , 24 th , and 29 th questions were examined, it was obs erved that the number of correct answers were smaller in the pretest when compared with the posttest.The 2 nd and 24 th questions were from the "food and its properties" part and were about the vitami n types in different foods.The 13 th question was from the "digestion of food" part and was about recognition of organs that had a role in digestion.The 29 th question was from the "food and its properti es" part and was about the bal anced and regular diet.
It was determined that the number of students who gave correct answers to 3 rd , 6 th , 10 th , 11 th , 15 th , 18 th , 19 th , 22 nd , and 28 th was higher in the retention test when compared wi th the pos ttest.The 3 rd , 6 th , 10 th , 11 th , and 12 th ques tions were from the "food and its properties" part.The 3 rd question was about the vitamin types in different foods.The 6 th question was about the balanced and regular di et.The 10 th question was about the fresh food.The 11 th and 12 th questions were about the harms of smoking and alcohol.The 15 th , 18 th , and 19 th questions were from the "digestion of food" part.The 15 th question was about tooth types.The 18 th question was about the digestion organs.The 19 th question was about the transmission of nutrients through blood.The 22 nd and 28 th questions were from the "urinary i n our body" part.The 22 nd question was about the existence of different urinary ways in the body.The 28 th ques tion was about the health of the urinary system.

Discussion
Today, out-of-school education is seen as a complementary to the formal education (Bozdogan and Kavci, 2016).These environments increase students' academic achievement in addi tion to affective, psychomotor, and social skills (DeWitt and Storksdi eck, 2008;Tal and Morag, 2009;Tatar and Bagriyanik, 2012).Within this context, the teachers should plan the out-of-school activities well so that they could be efficient (LacinSimsek, 2011).The literature showed that the teachers didn't have adequate knowledge and self-efficacy about the lessons conducted in out-of-school learning settings, and they felt anxious due to their inadequacy (Bozdo gan, 2012; Griffin and Symington, 1997;Kisiel, 2005;Orion and Hofstei n, 1994;Thomas, 2010).An achi evement test based on the "Let's Solve the Riddle of Our Body" chapter was developed to examine the effectiveness of guidance material.This test was administered to experimental and control group students as the pretest, posttest, and retention test.Independent s amples t-tes t was conducted to compare the pretest scores of experimental and control group students.According to the findings, it was found that there was no significant difference between the pretest scores of experimental and control group students(t(.05:29)=.897).These results showed that both groups were homogenous, which indicated appropriateness for an experimental study.
After the intervention in out-of-school learni ng setti ngs, both groups of students were administered the LeSROBAT again as the posttest.The data were analyzed using one -way covari ance analysis (ANCOVA) to check whether the intervention was effective by assuming the pretest res ults as the dependent variabl e.The findings revealed a significant difference between the scores of experimental and control group students in favor of experimental group [F(1 -28)= 22.99 p<.05].A body of research revealed that out-of-school learning settings had a positive effect on student achievement (Anderson, Lukas, Ginns and Dierki ng, 2000;Bozdogan, 2007;Bozdogan and Yalcin, 2006;Kuklaligil, 2012;Yavuz, 2012).Thus, the findings were consistent with the literature.It is considered that the learning through primary sources, by doing and experiencing, and through the interaction between and withi n groups has a positive role in student achievement.Ramey-Gassert (1997) expressed that out-of-school learning increased students' eagerness to learn and their motivation and attitude towards the lesson.Moreover, out-of-school learning provides students with a rich learning setti ngand facilitate s tudents to construct the knowledge through concrete examples (Balkan Kiyici and AtabekYigit, 2010).
It was determined that the experimental group students had the most correct answers to the questions related to the topics of fresh and clean food and the harms of smoking and alcohol in the pretest.The students had a chance to learn about thes e topics from their family, bills and posters i n their schools, and communication devices such as internet and television.Therefore, this condition is considered to be the reason of the high number of correct answers.On the other hand, the experimental group students had the leas t correct answers to the ques tions related to the topics of recognition of organs that had a role in digestion, the existence of different urinary ways in the body, and the health of urinary system in the pretest.The correct answer rate of these i tems was low since the s tudents had less chance to encounter such questions in the real life.
The control group students had the most correct answers to the ques tions rel ated to the topics of the necessity of nutrition for all creatures and the harms of smoking and alcohol in the pretest.It is considered that the students had a chance to learn about these topics from their family, school, and communication devices such as internet and televisi on.They had the least correct answers to the questions related to the topics of the water and minerals that were in every nutrient, the transmission of nutrients after di gestion through blood, the existence of different urinary ways in the body, and the concept of digestion in the pretest.This result was expected since these topics weren't as frequent as the harms of smoking and alcohol in real life and the students encountered with this topics in the school for the first time.
The experimental group students had the mos t correct answers to the questions related to the topics of the necessity of nutrition for all creatures, tooth types, and the existence of different uri nary ways in the body in the posttest.These topics were involved i n out-of-school learning settings such as di etiti an, oral and dental health center, and dialysis center.It is considered that the reason of this situation was that the out-of-school learning setti ngs provided the students with the primary sources and helped them keep the knowledge for a longer period of time (Balkan Kiyici, 2011; Balkan Kiyici and AtabekYigit, 2010; Pace and Tesi, 2004).It was observed that the experimental group students had the leas t correct answers to the question related to recogni tion of organs that had a rol e in digestion and the transmission of nutrients after diges tion through blood in the posttest.In the digestion of food part, the students were taken to gastroenterology department and the lesson was conducted there.The low number of correct answers is considered to be sourced from incomprehension of the questions and the abstractness of the transmissio n of nutri ents after di gestion through blood.Moreov er, the question rel ated to the recognition of organs that had a role in digestion was asked by a picture where they were nested with the organs of urinary and diges tion systems.The s tudents had misconceptions about the organs of digestion and urinary systems (Gungor and Ozgur, 2009).This might be the reason behind the low number of correct answers.
The control group students had the most correct answers to the ques tions rel ated to the topics of the nec essity of nutrition for all creatures, tooth types, tooth health and cleaning, and the harms of smoking and alcohol i n the posttes t.These topics were associated with the real-life activities that the students frequently conducted.Therefore, the number of correct answers to thes e questions was high.The least correct answers were given to the questions rel ated to the topics of recognition of organs that had a role i n digestion and the existence of different urinary ways in the body in the posttest.It is considered that the students weren't able to comprehend these topics enough in a traditional lesson.
The posttest was taken by 15 and 16 s tudents from experimental and control groups, respectively.In line with this, the experimental group gave more or equal number of correct answers to all questions except for the questions 8 and 26 compared to control group.Both the 8 th and the 26 th questions were from the "food and i ts properti es" part.The 8th question was about the fresh and natural food, while the 26 th question was about the harms of smoking on environment.It is important since there is only one answer difference between the numbers of correct answers to thes e questions.The bi ggest difference between the experimental and control group was among the answers given to the 10 th , 13 th , 21 st , 22 nd , and 24 th questions.The 10 th question was from the "food and its properties" part was about fresh food.The 13 th ques tion was from the "di gestion of food" and was about showing the place of organs that have a role in di gestion on the model.The 21 st and 22 nd questions were from the "urinary in our body" part and were about accessory di gestive organs.The 24 th ques tion was from the "food and its properti es" part and was about diseas es caused by the lack of vitamin.These topics were covered in a picnic in the school yard, faculty of medicine, dialysis center, and dietician in the experimental group.In other words, 4 out of 6 out -of-school learning s ettings had correct answers with the biggest difference.These findi ngs showed that out-of-school learning setti ngs and the guidance material had a positive effect on students' achiev ement.Plenty of research revealed that combining out-of-school learning experi ences with objectives increas ed the educational effect of thes e activities (Anderson, Kisiel and Storksdieck, 2006;Rapp, 2005).In a study focused on the effectiveness of activities conducted before, during, and after going to out-of-school learning settings, Stoneberg (1981) found that a visit that lacked proper planning and preparation didn't help student learning.Rapp (2005) s tated that long-term and repeti tive out-of-school learning practices provided students with deep learning and comprehension and expressed that combining the out-of-school learning activities with the objectives specified in the curriculum and conducting following activities brought about cognitive and social benefits to the students.Thes e studies showed that when the visit is planned well, when the students become active in out-of-school learning settings, and when the knowledge gained during out-of-school learning s ettings is reinforced through following activities, the students become successful cogni tively and affectively in the lessons conducted in out-of-school settings most (Anderson, Kisiel and Storksdieck, 2006;Orion and Hofstei n, 1991).From this perspective, the findings are consistent with the literature.
The retention tes t was administered to experimental and control group s tudents 9 months after the posttes t.Independent samples t-tes t was conducted in order to compare the s tudents' scores obtained from the retention tes t.The analysis reveal ed no significant difference between the experimental group students' scores obtai ned from posttest and retention test at p<. 05 lev el.Similarly, no significant difference between control group students' scores obtained from pos ttest and retention test at p<.05 lev el.However, the experimental group students had significantly higher scores from the retention tes t when compared wi th the control group students (t(.05:28)=3.65).When the experimental group s tudents' scores obtained from the retention test were examined, i t can be stated that these scores were hi gher than the scores obtained from the pretest and higher than or close to their pos ttest scores.The posttest scores of control group students were higher than or close to their pretes t scores.Their retention test scores were close to their pos ttest scores.There are studi es which hav e similar findings (Knapp, 2000;Pace and Tesi, 2004;Randler, Kummer, and Wilhelm, 2012) as well as different findings (Bozdogan, 2007;Yavuz, 2012).The reason why the retention was high i n this study is considered to be sourced from the fact that all of the out -of-school learning activities (heal th insti tutes and school yard) were related to the students' real lives, which made it easier to establish a link between former knowledge and the knowledge that was learned in out -of-school learning settings.Falk and Dierking (1997) and Anderson and Pisticelli (2002) expressed that the knowledge that was learned in out-of-school learning settings is remembered for long.Moreover, it was found that the lessons conducted i n out -of-school learning settings were effective in creating strong memories in a sociocultural context that would be remembered for a long time (Falk and Dierking, 2000).
The experimental group students had the most correct answers to the questions related to the topics of the food contai ning different types of vitamins, the harms of smoking and alcohol, and tooth types in the retention test.These topics are similar to thos e which had the most correct answers in the posttes t.Anderson and Pisticelli (2002), Falk and Dierking (1997), and Turkmen (2010) stated that the knowledge that was learned in out-of-school learning settings was remembered for a long time.It is considered that the lessons conducted in out -of-school l earning setti ngs were kept in mi nd for a longer time.The experimental group students had the leas t correct answers to the questions related to the topics of the balanced and regular diet, recognition of organs that had a role in di gestion, and the existence of different urinary ways in the body.The ques tions rel ated to the recognition of organs that had a role in di gestion also had low correct answers i n the posttes t.The reason behind this situation is considered to be the misconceptions about organs of digestion and urinary systems (G ungor and Ozgur, 2009).Therefore, the s tudents replied in a similar manner in the retention test.As for the low rate of correct answers to the questions about the topics of the balanced and regular diet and the existence of different urinary ways in the body, the age and social context of students are considered to have an effect on the retention of these topics.
The control group students had the mos t correct answers to the questions related to the topics of the harms of smoking and alcohol, tooth types, and tooth health in the retention test.Similarly, the reason behind the high rate of correct answers is considered to be the place of these topics in students' daily lives.They had the least correct answers to the questions related to the topics of the existence of different urinary ways in the body and diseas es caused by the lack of vitamin.The ques tion related to the existence of different urinary ways in the body had also low rate of correct ans wers in the posttest.Thus, it is considered that this topic wasn't able to be learned by the students.The topic of diseases caused by the lack of vitamin is considered not to be permanent since it isn't a topic that is frequently encountered in real life.The research s howed that lessons conducted in out-of-school learning settings concreted the abstract concepts and enriched the learning context at school and science, contributed to the dev elopment of students' science skills, and helped students make a connection between the knowledge and the daily life (Bozdogan, 2007;Chin, 2004).From this perspective, the topics couldn't be permanent.
The number of correct answers given by the experimental group s tudents to the ques tions 5, 11, 12, and 29 was higher in the retention tes t than the posttest.All of the questions were from the "food and its properties" part.The 5 th and 29 th questions were about the importance of a balanced and regular diet for human heal th.The 11 th and 12 th questions were about the harms of smoking and alcohol.The students were taken to a dietician and department of pediatric for the objectives related to these questions.Out-of-school learning setti ngs help making connections between the knowledge and the daily life (Bozdo gan, 2007;Chi n, 2004).These findings were considered to be obtai ned because the students used what they learned in their daily lives.
The number of correct answers given by the control group s tudents to the questions 2, 13, 24 and 29 was hi gher i n the retention test than the posttest.The 2 nd , 24 th , and 29 th questions were from the "food and its properties" part, while the 13 th question was from the "digestion of food" part.The 2 nd and 24 th questions were about the vitami n types in different foods.The 13 th question was about showing the place of organs that have a role in diges tion on the model.The 29 th question was about the balanced and regular diet.Thes e topics were considered to have higher rate of correct ans wers in the retention test since the teacher focused on these topics again at the end of the topics.
The number of correct answers given to the questions of 3, 6, 10, 11, 15, 18, 19, 22, and 28 was slightly higher in the retention test when compared with the posttest.The 3 rd , 6 th , 10 th , 11 th , and 12 th questions were from the "food and its properties" topic.The 3rd question was about the vitamin types in different foods.The 6 th ques tion was about the balanced and regular diet.The 10 th question was about the fres h food.The 11 th and 12 th ques tions were about the harms of smoking and alcohol.The 15 th , 18 th , and 19 th ques tions were from "digestion of food" topic.The 15 th question was about tooth types.The 18 th question was about the digestion organs.The 19 th question was about the transmission of nutrients through blood.The 22 nd and 28 th questions were from "urinary in our body" topic.The 22 nd ques tion was about accessory diges tive organs.The 28 th question was about the health of urinary system.The control group teacher focused on these topics repeatedly due to the curriculum, which is considered to be the reason behind these findings.

Conclusion
The effect of out-of-school learning settings based on a guidance material on 5 th grade students' achi evement was examined by administering the achi evement test to the experimental and control group s tudents as the pretes t, posttest, and the retention tes t.After the i ntervention in out-of-school settings within the framework of guidance material, the achievement test was administered to experimental and control group students as the pos ttest.When the results were compared, it was observed that the experimental group students had s ignificantly higher scores than the control group students [F(1-28)= 22.99 p<.05].Accordingly, it was found that the out-of-school learni ng setti ngs had an effect on students' learning.When the number of correct answers given by both the experimental and the control group students in the pretest was examined, it was observed that they gave more correct answers to the questions related to the topics that the students encountered in thei r environment and school frequently.The students gave less correct answers to the ques tions related to the topics that they encountered in their lives less frequently.When the experimental and control group students' lowest rate of correct answers were examined, it was observed that the questions related to topics that the students didn't encounter with frequently in their daily lives had the least correct answers.Accordingly, it was inferred that the topics that were frequently encountered by the s tudents in their daily lives were learned better informally.
The experimental group s tudents gave the most correct answers to the questions related to the necessity of nutrition for all creatures, the vitamin types in different foods, tooth types, tooth heal th, and the existence of different uri nary ways in the body in the posttes t.It was observed that thes e topics were covered in out -of-school learning settings such as dietician, oral and dental heal th center, and dialysis center.The control group students gave the most correct answers to the questions related to the necessity of nutri tion for all creatures, placing tooth types on the model, tooth heal th and cleaning, and the harms of smoking and alcohol in the posttes t.It was observed that these topics were frequently encountered by the s tudents in their daily lives and were a ble to be learned informally.That was the reason of high rate of correct answers.The questions that the experimental and control group students gave most correct answers were similar.However, the experimental group students gave more correct answers to the questions related to urinary system and the vitamin types in different foods.This situation showed that the experimental group students learned about the topics that they didn't frequently encountered in their lives better.
The experimental group students gave least correct answers to the questions related to recognition of organs that had a role in di gestion and the transmission of nutrients after di gestion through blood.The gastroenterology department was visited for the di gestion of food topic, and the lesson was conducted there.The control group students gave less correct answers to the questions related to recognition of organs that had a role in digestion, as well.The questions might not be well unders tood by the students.Moreover, why the question related to the transmission of nutri ents after digestion had low correct answers might be the students' cognitive levels.This topic might not be appropriate for the students since they were at the concrete operational stage.The control group students gave leas t correct ans wers to the questions related to recognition of organs that had a rol e in diges tion and the existence of different urinary ways in the body.It was inferred that thes e topics weren't understood well by the students in the lessons based on the current curriculum.
The number of correct answers given by the experimental and control group students in the posttes t were compared in terms of each item.15 students in experimental group took the posttest, while 1 6 students in the control group took the posttest.In line with this, the experimental group gave more or equal number of correct ans wers to all questions except for the questions 8 and 26 compared to control group.The bi ggest difference between the experimental and control group was among the answers given to the questions related to fresh food, showi ng the place of organs that hav e a role in digestion on the model, accessory digestive organs, and diseases caused by the lack of vitamin.These topics were covered in a picnic in the school yard, facul ty of medicine, dialysis center, and di etician i n the experimental group.In other words, 4 out of 6 out-of-school learning settings had correct answers with the bi ggest difference.Thes e findings showed that out-of-school learning settings and the guidance material had a positive effect on students' achievement.
The retention test was administered to experimental and control group s tudents 9 months after the posttest.The analysis revealed no significant difference between the experimental group students' scores obtained from pos ttest and retention tes t at p<.05 level.The experimental group students had significantly higher scores from the retention test when compared with the control group students (t(.05:28)=3.65).This situation showed that the knowl edge that was learned in out-of-school learning settings was remembered for longer a longer period of time.
The experimental group students gave mos t correct answers to the ques tions rel ated to the vitamin ty pes i n different foods, the harms of smoking and alcohol, and tooth types in the retention tes t.These topics were similar to the topics that had the most correct answers in the pos ttest.The control group students gav e most correct answers to the questions related to the harms of smoking and alcohol, placing tooth types on the model, and tooth health i n the retention test.Similarly, it was concluded that the reason of high correct rate was that the students frequently encountered wi th thes e topics in their daily lives.Apart from control group, the experimental group students gave more correct answers to the questions related to vitamin types in different foods.It was inferred that the students remembered this topic because they learned it in out-of-school learning settings by experiencing.
The experimental group students gave l east correct answers to the ques tions related to balanced and regular diet, recognition of organs that had a role in digestion, and the existence of different urinary ways in the body i n the retention test.The question related to the recogni tion of organs that had a role i n di gestion had low correct answers in the pos ttest as well.The reason why the students gave least correct answers to the question related to the existence of different urinary ways in the body and balanced and regular diet was considered to be related to students' age and thei r social context in which they encountered thes e topics frequently.The control group s tudents gave least correct answers to the questions related to the existence of different urinary ways in the body and the diseases caused by the lack of vitamin i n the retention test.The question related to the existence of different urinary ways in the body had low correct answers in the posttest as well.Moreover, the experimental group students also gave leas t correct answers to this ques tion.It considered that this topic wasn't learned by the students since i t was n't appropriate to their age and cognitive dev elopment.It was also considered that the topic about the diseases caused by the lack of vitami n wasn't learned well by the students because the students didn't encounter wi th that topic informally.On the other hand, this question had the highest correct answer rate in the experimental group in the ret ention test.It was concluded that the experimental group students learned this topic better through the out-of-school learning settings.

Recommendations
Based on the results of this research, the following suggestions have been made respectively.

1.
It was concluded that the guidance material which was developed within the scope of this study had a positive effect on student achiev ement.Therefore, the science teachers can benefit from this material in thei r out -ofschool learning activities.

2.
Curriculums should involve out-of-school learning setti ngs more becaus e the students learn knowledge more permanently in these settings.

3.
It was obs erved that the students were able to make better connections with what they informally learned and what they learned at school.In line with this, more public service ads, bills and posters should be incorporated.4.
Since the guidance material increased the students' academic achiev ement, gui dance materials that can be used in out-of-school learning settings should be prepared and presented for different units, ages, and lessons. 5.
The current teachers and administrators should be informed about the importance of out -of-school learning settings through in-service trainings, and they should be encouraged to conduct these types of activities.6.
The curriculums of teacher education institutions should involve lessons focusing on out-of-school learning settings, and the teacher candidates should be provided with the opportunity to practice these activities.7.
The individuals who will guide the out-of-school learning activities should be selected before the visit since they are required to be informed.8.
The topics of transmission of nutrients through blood and the existence of different urinary ways in the body are recommended to be concretized since the 5 th graders are at the concrete operational stage.9.
Similar works can be done at different class levels and different chapters.

Table 1 .
Experimental design of the research

Table 5 .
The results of ANCOVA of let's solve the riddle of our body chapter achievement test posttest in terms o f groups

Table 6 .
t-test results of posttest -retention test mean scores of experimental and control group students

Table 7 .
t-test findings of let's solve the riddle of our body chapter achievement test administered as the retention test to