مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - A Study on the Effectiveness of Social Studies Laboratories (Classrooms) on Social Studies Teaching

Abstract :

In Turkey, fundamental changes have been done for social studies education in recent years.In particular, primary school social studies curricula, started to implement in 2005, is one of the most indicators of these changes. 2005 social studies curricula suggest usage of social studies laboratories that provides learning by doing and using more than one sense. The aim of this study is to examine the effects of usage of laboratory (private classroom) on the academic achievement of students in social studies course. This study was carried out with 7th graders in Meram Mehmet Karacığanlar Primary School and Selçuklu Mareşal Mustafa Kemal Primary School located in the center of Konya during 2008-2009 academic years. In this context, 2x2 pre-test-post-test randomized control-group design, one of the experimental methods, was used in the study. The collected data were analyzed with independent sample and paired-sample t tests in SPSS 15.0. The results of the study showed that social studies laboratories (private classrooms) are more effective than the classical (traditional) classrooms on students’ academic achievements in social studies courses.