A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH ON DETERMINATION OF SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF SUCCESS

SOSYAL BİLGİLER ÖĞRETMENLERİNİN BAŞARI ALGILARININ BELİRLENMESİNE YÖNELİK NİTEL BİR ÇALIŞMA

Abstract

Although it changes depending on the time or the community or society, success, defined as “…accomplishing or obtaining the desired result”, has become an important requirement for societies and individuals in every society and period. The 21st century society is regarded as ‘information society’ as a result of the rapid accumulation of knowledge. The most significant indicators of being able to represent ‘an information society’ can be considered as ‘to access information’, ‘to analyze information’ and ‘to synthesize it as to make it functional’. Therefore, owing to the fact that the expectations for students in today's society are different from those in earlier periods, the meaning attributed to the concept of "success" has also changed. Given that an important part of human life is spent in formal educational institutions, the meanings attributed to the concept of "success" by teachers, who play a key role in the implementation of the curriculum, can be said to be of significant importance, too. Because, many cases such as the preparation phase, the teaching-learning process, the choice of materials to be used in teaching process and measurement and evaluation activities as parts of the teaching – learning process will be designed according to the meaning teachers’ attribute to the concept of "success". At the same time, the meaning teachers attribute to the concept of "success" is also concerned with the educational philosophy they adopted. When considered in this aspect, revealing what meanings attributed to the concept of "success" by social studies teachers will both contribute to the resolution of problems experienced in the teaching – learning process and reveal to what extent the educational philosophy adopted in the social studies curriculum is internalized by the teachers. In this study utilizing a phenomenological design, one of the qualitative research approaches, data were collected by means of a semi-structured interview form administered on a total of 13 social studies teachers, 4 women and 9 men, working in secondary schools in Siirt city center in November and December in the academic year 20142015. After the data obtained from the interviews, each lasted approximately 40 min., were transcribed and then confirmed by the interviewees, and analyzed according to descriptive analysis. Interviewees’ responses to each question were brought together, classified under headings with reference to their similarities and frequency (f) of the views expressed under each heading was presented. These procedures were separately realized by two different experts, then the differences determined by comparing each encoding were handled by reference to a third expert opinion. In order to calculate the final set’s percentage of agreement, another expert opinion was also referenced and the percentage of agreement of the research was calculated as 0.92. At the end of the research; there have been found to be significant differences while the meaning social studies teachers attribute to the concept of ‘success’ overall seem to be similar. It was revealed that opinions which share similarities are appropriate for essentialist philosophy of education while different opinions generally accord with the the progressivist educational philosophy. Since teachers’ views provide important clues to the various problems encountered in the teaching-learning process, suggestions were made in this direction Although it changes depending on the time or the community or society, success, defined as “accomplishing or obtaining the desired result”, has become an important requirement for societies and individuals in every society and period. The 21st century society is regarded as ‘information society’ as a result of the rapid accumulation of knowledge. The most significant indicators of being able to represent ‘an information society’ can be considered as ‘to access information’, ‘to analyze information’ and ‘to synthesize it as to make it functional’. Therefore, owing to the fact that the expectations for students in today's society are different from those in earlier periods, the meaning attributed to the concept of "success" has also changed. Given that an important part of human life is spent in formal educational institutions, the meanings attributed to the concept of "success" by teachers, who play a key role in the implementation of the curriculum, can be said to be of significant importance, too. Because, many cases such as the preparation phase, the teaching-learning process, the choice of materials to be used in teaching process and measurement and evaluation activities as parts of the teaching – learning process will be designed according to the meaning teachers’ attribute to the concept of "success". At the same time, the meaning teachers’ attribute to the concept of "success" is also concerned with the educational philosophy adopted. When considered in this aspect, revealing what meanings attributed to the concept of "success" by social studies teachers will both contribute to the resolution of problems experienced in the teaching – learning process and reveal to what extent the education philosophy adopted in the social studies curriculum is internalized by the teachers. The fact that meaning teachers attribute to the concept of “success” in the teaching – learning process and successful individuals’ characteristics are the same in line with the education philosophy adopted by curriculum increases the effectiveness of the program, while the differentiation of these conditions may result in failure by influencing the implementation of the program negatively. Within this context, this research, which aims to put forth the social studies teachers’ perceptions of success, may be considered to be of importance in terms of presenting a panorama of the current situation. For the purpose of the research are sought answers the following sub-problems: 1. What is success, in your opinion? Please explain. 2.

Özet

İstenilen ya da arzu edilen sonuca ulaşmak olarak tanımlanan başarı, toplumdan topluma ya da zamana bağlı olarak değişiklik göstermekle birlikte, her toplumda ve dönemde toplum ve birey açısından önemli bir gereksinim olmuştur. 21. Yüzyıl toplumu bilgi birikiminin hızla artmasına bağlı olarak bilgi toplumu olarak nitelendirilmektedir. Bilgi toplumunu temsil edebilmenin önemli göstergeleri ise bilgiye ulaşma, bilgiyi analiz etme, sentezleme diğer bir ifadeyle bilgiyi işlevsel hale getirme olarak gösterilebilir. Dolayısıyla günümüz toplumunda öğrencilerden beklentiler önceki dönemlerden farklılık gösterdiğinden, "başarı" kavramına yüklenen anlamı da değiştirmiştir. İnsan yaşamının önemli bir bölümünün örgün eğitim kurumlarında uygulanması aşamasında kilit rolde bulunan öğretmenlerin "başarı" kavramına yükledikleri anlamın da ayrı bir önem taşıdığı söylenebilir. Çünkü eğitim-öğretim sürecinde hazırlık aşaması, öğretme-öğrenme süreci ve bu süreçte kullanılacak materyallerin seçimi, ölçme ve değerlendirme etkinlikleri gibi birçok durum öğretmenin "başarı" kavramına yükledikleri anlama göre farklı desenlenecektir. Aynı zamanda öğretmenlerin başarı kavramına yükledikleri anlam benimsedikleri eğitim felsefeleriyle de ilgilidir. Bu yönüyle sosyal bilgiler öğretmenlerinin başarı kavramına yükledikleri anlamın ortaya konulması; eğitim-öğretim sürecinde yaşanan sorunların çözümüne de katkı sağlamakla birlikte sosyal bilgiler öğretim programında benimsenen eğitim felsefesinin öğretmenler tarafından ne kadar içselleştirildiğini de ortaya koyacaktır. araya getirilerek, benzerliklerinden hareketle başlıklar altında sınıflandırılmış ve her başlığa ilişkin görüşlerin frekansı (f) gösterilmiştir. Bu işlemler iki ayrı uzman tarafından ayrı ayrı yapılmış olup daha sonra karşılaştırılmıştır. Tespit edilen farklılıklar üçüncü bir uzman görüşüne başvurularak farklılıklar giderilmiştir. Son halini alan çalışmanın uyuşum yüzdesini hesaplamak amacıyla bir uzman görüşüne daha başvurulmuştur. Bu işlem sonucunda uyuşum yüzdesi .92 olarak hesaplanmıştır. Çalışma sonunda; sosyal bilgiler öğretmenlerinin başarı kavramına yükledikleri anlam genel olarak benzerlik göstermekle birlikte önemli farklılıkların da olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Benzerlik gösteren görüşlerin daha çok esasicilik eğitim felsefesi yaklaşımına, söz konusu farklı görüşlerin ise ilerlemecilik eğitim felsefesi yaklaşıma uygun olduğu sonucuna ulaşılmıştır. Öğretmen görüşleri eğitim-öğretim sürecinde yaşanan çeşitli sorunlar için önemli ipuçları verdiğinden bu doğrultuda önerilerde bulunulmuştur