Effect of Conceptual Change Texts for Overcoming Misconceptions in "People and Management" Unit.

AbstractThis study aimed to investigate the effects of conceptual change texts in teaching concepts in the "People and Management" Unit of a Social Studies Course. The working group of the study was composed of 4th graders in a primary school in Corum, assigned as control ( n= 23) and experimental (n= 23) groups. Non-equivalent control group design, a quasi-experimental method, was used in the study. Conceptual change texts were used in the experimental group for 4 weeks to overcome misconceptions related to "constitution, independence, republic, democracy, government/state, public opinion, centralized administration, national sovereignty, local administration" and traditional teaching approach was used in the control group. The People and Management Unit Achievement Test (PMUAT) was utilized in the study as data collection tool. Analysis of experimental and control groups' pre and post test scores pointed to significant differences in the favour of experimental group in the post test.Keywords: Concept, Misconception, Conceptual change texts, Social studies course.IntroductionConcepts are crucial in making sense of the world and comprise an important part of learning. If it were not possible to group objects, events and ideas based on common aspects, it would be obligatory to learn each element separately (Celikoz, 1998). Starting at birth, people develop concepts as a result of their interactions with their environments on the one hand while learning the vocabulary related to those concepts on the other. As a result of mental connections formed among them, these learning experiments transform into new learning opportunities and make sense. This is a lifelong process that allows the generation of new knowledge and interpretation of existing knowledge in new ways (Yildirim, 2010). Concept is a term that is used to classify objects, events and processes which are similar (Cannon, 2002). Concepts that are the building blocks of knowledge and units of thought are learned by children starting from early periods in their lives. Children later classify them, form relationships among them and make sense of new information (Koray & Bal, 2002). Concepts make contributions for us to figure out the objects found in our environment and world by reducing the complexity of the environment we live in. Furthermore, they simplify the communication among people and provide the organization of knowledge in a systematic way (Driver & Erickson, 1983). Concept learning starts at birth and becomes more complicated throughout their lives. In general, children learn concepts as a result of random experimentation. Planned concept teaching starts with schooling (Ulgen, 2001). Social Studies Courses are one of the classes in which students come across many concepts. Primary school students need to comprehend basic concepts very well in order to learn principles of the Social Studies discipline and solve the social problems they will be given. One of the goals of Social Studies primary education courses is to ensure student comprehension related to various concepts presented in units (Yazici & Samanci, 2003). Social Studies classes aim to provide students with the basic knowledge, skills, attitudes and values related to social life based on selected information from social sciences disciplines in order to educate decent and responsible citizens (Ozturk & Otluoglu, 2002). That is, Social Studies exist to understand people and their lives in all aspects. Trying to memorize a pile of information in order to understand human beings and their lives will be insufficient and meaningless. Therefore, attention should be paid to learn concepts accurately in order to make sense of the information learned in the process.The Social Studies program has a broad and detailed content which points to substantiality of the concepts and hence concepts in all units should be taught and learned accurately and meaningfully. …