Researchers offer alternative strategies to support meaningful learning in biological concepts such as circulatory system. Learning cycle is one of these strategies and can be defined as an activity oriented teaching method to promote students’ meaningful understanding of scientific concepts, explore and deepen that understanding, and then apply the concepts to new situations. There are many studies carried out to assess the effectiveness of learning cycle in science teaching (Blank, 1999; Ates, 2005; Balcı, Çakıroğlu & Tekkaya, 2006; Atay & Tekkaya,2008). According to these studies, learning cycle encourages students to develop their own understanding of a scientific concept and so promotes conceptual change while providing better understanding of that scientific implications.

On the other hand, it is stated that not only instructional strategies but also cognitive factors have an effect on students’ understanding of biology concepts (Araz & Sungur, 2007). Science education researchers give attention the importance of cognitive variables influencing students’ science achievement. When looked at the research evidence cited in the literature, reasoning ability and learning approach are two important cognitive variables (Cavallo, 1996). Reasoning ability is used to “denote consistent, logical thought patterns which are employed during the process of scientific inquiry that enable individuals to propose relationships between observed phenomena; to design experiments which test hypotheses concerning the proposed relationships; to determine all possible alternatives and outcomes; to consider probabilities of occurrences; to predict logical consequences; to weight evidence, or proof; and to use a number of instances to justify a particular conclusion" (Steussy, 1984, p. 2). Moreover, learning approach which measures students’ learning orientation is another cognitive variable that affects meaningful understanding.  Meaningful learning can be defined as having deep understanding of complex ideas or subjects. Because knowledge and understanding exist in the mind of the students, obtaining multiple perspectives can deepen the understanding of meaningful learning and its significance (Wiske, 1998). In the literature, it was pointed out that meaningful learning orientation is significant for meaningful understanding of students in science and stated that meaningful learning orientation together with reasoning abilities gives to students’ meaningful understanding of biology (Cavallo, 1996).

Briefly, there are many researches about cognitive variables and students’ biology achievements, separately in literature; however, few works examined the interaction of such variables and types of instructions and discussed how cognitive processes act together, and how each affects achievement outcomes (Pintrich, 2003; Wigfield, Eccles, Schiefele, Roeser, & Davis-Kean, 2006). The purpose of the present study is to extend the finding of preceding research by comparing the relationships in two different instructional modes (traditional vs. learning cycle). The present study aims to investigate the relationships among high school students’ relevant prior knowledge, meaningful learning orientation, reasoning ability and achievement in human circulatory system in learning cycle and traditional classrooms.

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