ARTICLES

 

Eliminating student misconceptions regarding the unit, Adventure of Democracy, in sixth grade social studies lessons

 

 

Tekin Çelikkaya^I; Mutlu Kürümlüoglu^II

^IDepartment of Social Studies Education, Faculty of Education, University of Kırşehir Ahi Evran, Kırşehir, Turkey tcelikkaya@ahievran.edu.tr
^IIDirectorate of National Education, Kayseri, Turkey

 

 

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ABSTRACT

Misconceptions are judgments formed in the mind of an individual about a concept that contradicts scientific principles. Identifying and correcting existing misconceptions in students' minds is an important part of education. To help students properly grasp the concepts covered in the curriculum, any existing misconceptions should be identified and eliminated first, which will ensure that they will better learn the concepts that they encounter in the future. Adopting an action research design, we aimed to examine whether the misconceptions of 6th grade students regarding the study unit, The Adventure of Democracy, have been resolved. The study group consisted of 24 students in classes 6/A and 6/B at the Havuz Secondary School in the Kangal district of the Sivas province of Turkey in the 2017/2018 academic year. Certain methods were used to produce activities aimed at teaching concepts and eliminating misconceptions - audio recordings and field notes were used as the data collection tools. The data were analysed through descriptive analysis. The analysis revealed that the action research activities were effective in teaching the targeted concepts and eliminating the misconceptions held by students.

Keywords: action research; concept teaching; misconceptions; social studies; the adventure of democracy

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Introduction

People encounter various objects that they want to identify and name throughout their lives. These actions are performed directly or indirectly. Based on our life experiences, we group two or more entities together according to their common characteristics, distinguish them from other entities and store them as a unit of thought in our minds. These units of thought are called concepts (Çepni, 2006).

Mislearning or misinterpretation of the concepts that form the basis of scientific knowledge leads to conceptual confusion and misconceptions, causing the learned knowledge not to be used or even to be misused. Misconceptions obscure accurate concepts about an event or phenomenon, so they are quite dangerous. It is much better to have no understanding and knowledge about a subject than to have a misconception about it, because it is very difficult to correct the misconceptions later. Therefore, it is important to teach concepts correctly (Bitlisli, 2014). There is no single reason for misconceptions. Factors leading to misunderstanding may stem from teachers, students and textbooks (Yılmaz, Ö 1998), as well as students' lack of learning motivation or prejudice against a subject.

According to Grösser (2007:38), "[an] important role of the teacher in developing certain learning functions [is] to assist the learner in the learning process and in the optimal realisation of learning outcomes. These learning functions refer to the following: how to link new information to prior knowledge, how to organize information, and how to acquire cognitive and metacognitive learning functions."

The most important factor in misconceptions arising from a teacher is that the teacher tries to teach more than one concept at the same time and does not exactly know the concept he/she is aiming to teach (Lawson, 1995, cited in Demirci, 2003). In addition, misconceptions may occur if many problems are solved in a uniform way or if students are not given enough time to think while solving them. It is important to identify students' misconceptions and eliminate them, since learning wrong concepts will lead to the formation of misconceptions in the future. Concept teaching has an important place in the social studies curriculum, which, due to the content of the curriculum, includes many concepts. In teaching concepts, classifications and different concept teaching approaches should be taken into account. Certain methods should be used for eliminating ambiguity, conceptual confusion and misconceptions.

The main methods used in teaching concepts and eliminating misconceptions are shown in Table 1 (Çelikkaya, 2018):

 

 

In order for students to learn the principles of social studies and to solve social problems, they need to acquire basic concepts very well. Concept teaching in social studies gained importance with the conceptual approach, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. During this period, academics conducted research to reveal the basic concepts of social sciences in order to facilitate the teaching of social studies (Erden, 1999).

Concept teaching in social studies provides high-level academic success, simplifies learning and remembering, facilitates communication, helps to distinguish between true and false perceptions by personalising teaching, facilitates problem-solving and reasoning by helping to understand complex events (Doğanay, 2005).

Literature Review

Various studies (Göncüoğlu, 2010; Yesari, 2018; Zingal, 2015) have been conducted on the level of student success regarding the unit, Adventure of Democracy (hereafter, the unit). In all of these studies, the effect of certain teaching techniques on student achievement has been examined, and the experimental group was found to be more successful than the control group.

In a study conducted by Selcuk, Altintas and Ciritci (2015), sixth grade students were asked to create animal metaphors related to the concepts of constitutionalism, secularism, monarchy, oligarchy, freedom and executive. In a study by K Yılmaz (2013), it was aimed to reveal the perceptions of eighth grade students about the concepts of responsibility, rights, equality, citizenship and sovereignty. In a study by Akgün (2015), it was aimed to determine the level of the realisation of the five acquisitions aimed at students in the unit, Adventure of Democracy, in terms of various variables. Regarding the concepts discussed in this study in the international literature, a study by Onwe and Nwogbaga (2015) on the concept of sovereignty, "Conceptual issues and theoretical analysis of sovereignty", was designed to examine the various perceptions and interpretations of the concept, especially regarding the sources, location, and essence. Since the unit was included in the social studies curriculum in Turkey, no study or action research has been found in international literature regarding the elimination of misconceptions in the unit.

With this study, various activity plans were developed and implemented to eliminate the misconceptions related to the unit and to ensure that the students and the teacher participating in the research achieved various outcomes. As such, the study was expected to make a significant contribution to the related literature.

Aim of the Study

The main purpose of this study was to examine whether sixth grade students' misconceptions were eliminated by conducting action research in the social studies lessons taught through various activities based on concept teaching related to 10 concepts in the unit. For this purpose, answers to the following questions were sought:

Regarding the concepts of republic, democracy, sovereignty, constitutional monarchy, monarchy, oligarchy, theocracy, judiciary, legislature and executive,

• are there any existing misconceptions held by the students?

• what kinds of activities can be prepared and how can these activities be implemented?

• to what extent have the misconceptions been eliminated?

 

Method

In this section, detailed explanations are presented.

Research Design

The students' level of understanding of the concepts in the unit was revealed and the misconceptions they had were identified. Various activities to eliminate these misconceptions were developed, implemented, and evaluated.

The action research design, which best fit the nature of the inquiry, was used because teaching practices were developed and the problem was identified and eliminated in its natural environment, in which the primary researcher acted as a guide. According to Johnson (2014), action research is closer to qualitative research because action researchers do not shape the environment to isolate variables.

The feature that distinguishes action research from other types of research is that it fills the gap between theory and practice by taking a snapshot of an existing problem and its solution as a whole by ensuring that research results are directly reflected in practice. In this respect, action research is a research approach in which participation, reflection and development processes are productively employed (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2016).

"Action research can be carried out in four steps: determining the area to focus on, collecting data, analyzing and interpreting data, and developing an action plan" (Mills, 2003:18). In action research, it is important to realise social change by ensuring the development of individuals by collaborating (Aksoy, 2003). Action research was preferred for this study for the reasons stated above.

The research process was two-dimensional, including the explanation of the subjects and conducting activities to ensure students' accurate understanding of the concepts to achieve the targeted learning outcomes of the course. The subjects and concepts were associated according to the achievements before the application. Which week and which subjects and concepts would be covered was planned before the research. (cf. Table 2).

 

 

The implementation started in the second week of March 2018 and was completed in the fourth week of April 2018. While teaching the concepts, the curricular order of the targeted outcomes was taken into consideration.

As seen in Figure 1, we determined the students' overall prior knowledge and perceptions (initial situation) about the related concept in the first lesson. Based on this, the action activities were created and applied in the second and third lessons. At the end of the third lesson, after the action activities, the data generation tool (final assessment) applied in the first lesson was applied again. We evaluated the final assessment by taking the sample criterion that we created for the related concept into account.

 

 

Participants

After having determined the subject and purpose of the research, the school and classroom where the research was to be conducted, were determined. Since this research was backyard research (the researcher's own workplace, etc.), Havuz Secondary School (pseudonym), where the primary researcher worked, was chosen as research setting.

After having determined the research setting, we initiated the official procedures for obtaining permission for the research from the Ministry of National Education (MoNE). The necessary permissions were obtained on 28 March 2018. After having secured the permission, the students and parents were informed about the research. Due to parents not consenting and issues with transport required for the students, only 24 of a total of 41 students in the 6 A/B classes at Havuz Secondary School were included in the study. The researcher had been teaching these classes for 2 years. In line with research ethics and to ensure the participants' anonymity, pseudonyms (for example: Damla, İrem, & Mustafa) were used to refer to each participant instead of using their real names.

Research Setting

The environment in which the research took place was one of the factors affecting the results. Havuz Secondary School consists of a three-storey building. The ground floor included the library and kindergarten, the first floor a science laboratory, and the second floor housed the primary school as well as the first, second, third, and fourth grades, the informatics classroom, the teachers' room and the assistant principal's room. The fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades of the secondary school, as well as the principal' s room and an instructional support classroom were located on the third floor.

The Role of the Practitioner Researcher Yıldırım and Şimşek (2016:308) added a different type to the existing classification of action research as "the practitioner who collects the data related to the problem s/he determined while continuing the application is also a researcher." In this study the practitioner (I) assumed the role of researcher-teacher and carried out the planning and implementation of the research process and data collection under guidance of my supervisor. At the time of the study, I had been working at the participating school for 3 years, had 3 years' professional experience, and had taken courses on qualitative research during my graduate education.

Data Collection Instrument

It was determined that understanding the basic concepts expected to be achieved in the unit in the social studies curriculum were not clearly stated, and the number of concepts specified at the beginning of the unit in the social studies textbooks varied between 20 and 26 - depending on the publisher. Since it would be difficult to study all of these concepts within the scope of the study, I decided to include 10 concepts based on the answers given by the students in the preliminary study.

In the research, data were produced about four concepts in the first week, three concepts in the fifth week, and one concept in the other weeks. Each lesson hour was audio recorded and field notes were created.

Johnson (2014) states that there are many types of data and many different methods of collecting these in qualitative research. The important thing when determining data generation tools is to use the methods that best suit the research question and teaching context. The tools used to generate data in this research are grouped under three headings:

1) Data generation tools used to determine the knowledge status: The word association test (WAT) was prepared to determine the students' prior knowledge and post-lesson knowledge. The WAT was implemented between the second and sixth weeks. It was given at the beginning and at the end of the lessons.

2) Data generation tools used to teach concepts: Techniques such as concept maps, CCTs, concept puzzles, structured grids, meaning analysis tables, and concept webs were used to eliminate misconceptions during the research process.

• Concept maps help to present the subject as a whole by adding visuality to the subject. Within the scope of our study, concept maps were used to reinforce the concepts given in the second and third weeks of the research.

• During the research, it became clear that the students confused some concepts, and thus CCTs were prepared for the related concepts. These CCTs were given in the fourth, fifth and sixth weeks. While preparing the CCTs, a text of at least half a page was created based on the dictionary definitions and analyses of the concepts used interchangeably by the students, and sometimes these texts were supported by visuals.

• Meaning analysis tables (MAT) can be used effectively in learning the descriptive and distinctive features of concepts. While preparing this tool, the student connects the meanings of the words they had learnt to the words they already knew, thus developing the concept. A puzzle activity was used in the second week of this research.

• Since it included many topics related to the subject, a structured grid was used in the third week.

• Concept webs were used in the second week of the research - to gain a general review of the subject, to recall the lesson, to activate the students' prior knowledge, and to develop relationships between the concepts and the scope of the concepts.

• Concept puzzles, used in the seventh week of the research, were important for the general review of the subject.

3) Data generation tools to support and understand the overall process: Field notes and concept achievement test were used for this. Field notes are transcriptions of what is observed during the implementation. Field notes can be of three types: intensive descriptions during instruction, short notes during instruction, and notes and reflections after instruction (Johnson, 2014). Post-instruction reflection was used in this study. I mostly recorded my post-instruction observations in a diary. These field notes were kept as a tool to increase the reliability of the research.

To determine any misconceptions about the concepts, "republic, democracy, sovereignty, secularism, constitutional monarchy, national sovereignty, monarchy, oligarchy, sultanate, theocracy, judiciary, legislature", and "executive" in the unit in the sixth grade social studies curriculum, 247 students in five secondary schools in Sivas central province which were excluded from the study sample were given an open-ended questionnaire on which they were required to provide the meanings of the concepts as short, written answers. To detect any mistakes in the answers, the definitions of the concepts in the social studies text books and the Büyük Türkçe Sözlük (The Great Turkish Dictionary, Türk Dil Kurumu [TDK], 2018) were consulted. For example, the TDK (2018) provides the meaning of the concept, "sovereignty" as "all the powers of the nation and the state, which is its legal personality and dominance." However, the students who had misconceptions about the concept "sovereignty" defined it as "management within the framework of the law, the power of the nation and the state, legislative-executive powers." By comparing the definitions of the concepts in the social studies textbook and the Great Turkish Dictionary with the student responses, misconceptions were identified about 13 concepts held by 123 participants - making up more than half of the sample (cf. Table 3).

 

 

Incorrect concepts such as sultanate, national sovereignty and secularism (cf. Table 3), which were included in the management concepts, were excluded from the scope because they were included in other concepts. Misconception elimination activities have been prepared for 10 other concepts that were determined to be misconceptions.

 

Data Analysis

The data obtained from the field notes and observations were analysed through descriptive analysis.

The WAT was used as the primary data collection tool. Before starting the implementation, WAT was explained and various WAT examples were presented. Students were given 3 minutes to respond to each concept. During this period, the students wrote the words that they thought were related to the key concept and related sentences.

To prevent the risk of students providing a chain response to a concept, each key concept was written on a single page five times after each other to remind them of what they were expected to respond to and not to write down unrelated words that pop up in their minds. If they did, this would negate the purpose of the test (Bahar & Özatlı, 2003). A related sentence corresponding to each of the key concepts was included after the five repetitions. In this section, the students were requested to write sentences in which they used the key concept and the words they associated it with.

In addition, since the related sentence was more complex and on a higher level than a single-answer word, situations such as whether the sentence was scientific or not and whether it contained misconceptions of a different nature affected the analysis (Ercan, Taşdere & Ercan, 2010).

Reliability

We tried to explain all processes and stages in detail in this study. It was clearly stated how the data collection tools were developed, how the applications were made, and how the data were analysed and interpreted. In addition, the data obtained as a result of the analysis were described with supporting direct quotations. In the findings, the expressions in the worksheets, and the student and researcher diaries were scanned and presented, and the communication sections obtained from the observations were included. Different data collection tools were used in the research to enhance consistency, worksheets were collected, and we tried to minimise the loss of data. In order to ensure the credibility of the research, the codes and the situations developed by us were compared in order to confirm whether the sentences that emerged in the research represented the aforementioned conceptual categories. After the two field experts coded the research data separately, the resulting code list was finalised. The consistency of the codes that we used independently was determined by marking them with "Agreement" or "Disagreement" depending on whether we used the same code for the students' expressions or not. The reliability of the data analysis performed in this way was calculated using the formula [Agreement / (Agreement + Disagreement) x 100] suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994) and the consistency rate of the study was found to be 93%.

 

Findings

The statistical analyses of the obtained data are presented in this section. Due to the page limitation in the article, many examples were not included.

Determination of Students' Prior Knowledge and Perceptions of the Concepts in the First Week At the beginning of the first lesson, the WAT was administered to determine students' prior knowledge and perceptions about the concepts "republic, monarchy, oligarchy" and "theocracy." After the implementation, "Types of Government", which is the first topic in the unit (Outcome 1. The student compares the different types of government in terms of the basic principles of democracy), was taught through the usual lecturing technique, and the first lesson was completed in this way. Action activities were prepared to address the deficiencies determined through the evaluation of the WATs completed by the students.

Activities to teach the concepts in the first week

To eliminate the students' misconceptions about the concepts, "republic, monarchy, oligarchy" and "theocracy", a concept map was used to work on these concepts in the second lesson, and the concept web form and MAT were used in the third lesson. At the end of the third lesson, the WAT, which had been used to determine the students' prior knowledge and perceptions in the first lesson, was administered again and the third lesson was completed in this way. The WATs completed by the students were analysed after school. The results of this analysis and a comparison of the number of words and sentences provided in the pre-test and post-test are given in Table 4.

 

 

When Table 4 is examined, it is seen that while words and sentences were written by each student for all words in the post-test, the number of words and sentences produced, especially for three concepts (monarchy, theocracy and oligarchy) in the pre-test, was lower than in the post-test. In the posttest, there was a significant increase in the number of words and sentences to describe all concepts.

Determination of Students' Prior Knowledge and Perceptions of the Concepts in the Second Week At the beginning of the first lesson, the WAT was administered to determine the students' prior knowledge and perceptions about the concept "democracy." After the implementation, the first subject of the unit, namely, "The History of Democracy" (Outcome 2. The student discusses the historical development of the democratic administration in different periods and cultures) was taught through lecturing and the first lesson was completed in this way. The WATs completed by the students were evaluated and action activities were prepared to address the misconceptions identified through this evaluation.

Activities to teach the concepts in the second week

The concept map form was used in the second lesson to eliminate the problems identified regarding the concept "democracy" and a worksheet and a structured grid were used in the third lesson. At the end of the third lesson, the WAT, which was used to determine the students' prior knowledge and perceptions in the first lesson, was used again and the third lesson was completed in this way. The students' WATs were once again analysed after school. The results from the analysis show that the students used the same words for the concept "democracy" in the pre- and post-tests. The reason might be that the concept is used a lot in daily life.

Determination of Student's Prior Knowledge and Perceptions of the Concepts in the Third Week At the beginning of the first lesson, the WAT was administered to determine the students' prior knowledge and perceptions about the concept "sovereignty." Following the implementation, the subject of the lesson, "We Have Rights", (Outcome 3. The student argues that the right to live in democratic administrations, the right to personal immunity, the freedom of religion and conscience, and the freedom of thought) was taught by giving a lecture and the first lesson was completed in this way. The WATs completed by the students were evaluated, and action activities were prepared to address the misconceptions identified in this evaluation.

Activities to teach the concepts in the third week

In the second lesson, the lesson was taught with the CCT prepared for this concept to eliminate the misconceptions regarding the concept "sovereignty" identified in the first lesson. In the third lesson, a general summary of the subject was made, and at the end of the lesson, the word association, which was performed to determine the students' prior knowledge and perceptions in the first lesson was used again and the third lesson was completed in this way. The students' WATs were analysed after school.

The results from the analysis show that the students used more or less the same words for the concept "sovereignty" were used by almost every student in the pre-test and by all the students in the post-test. The fact that the results from the pre-test and post-test were close to each other may have resulted from mentioning this concept in the previous lessons.

Determination of Students' Prior Knowledge and Perceptions of the Concepts in the Fourth Week At the beginning of the first lesson, the WAT was administered to determine students' prior knowledge and perceptions about the concept "constitutional monarchy." After the implementation, the subject, "Human rights from past to present", was taught through the lecture technique to help students achieve the learning outcome (Outcome 4. The student analyses the historical development of human rights based on historical documents), and the first lesson was completed in this way. The WATs completed by the students were evaluated, and some action activities were prepared to address the misconceptions identified through this evaluation.

Activities to teach concepts in the fourth week In the second lesson hour the lesson was taught with the CCT prepared to eliminate the inaccuracies identified in the first lesson regarding the concept "constitutional monarchy." In the third lesson, a general summary of the subject was made, and at the end of the lesson, the WAT, which had been administered to determine the students' prior knowledge and perceptions in the first lesson, was administered again to complete the third lesson hour. The students' WATs were again analysed after school and some action activities were prepared to address the misconceptions identified through this evaluation.

The results from the analysis show that the students used the same words for the concept "constitutional monarchy" in the pre- and post-tests. The fact that the pre-test and post-test scores were close to each other may be due to the fact that the students compared this concept to other forms of government in the previous lessons.

Determination of Students' Prior Knowledge and Perceptions of the Concepts in the Fifth Week At the beginning of the first lesson, the WAT was administered to determine the students' prior knowledge and perceptions about the concepts "legislative, executive" and "judicial." After the implementation, the subject of the lesson, "Women's place in the Turkish society" (Outcome 5. The student interprets examples of the position of women in Turkish history in terms of the development of women' s rights), was taught through a lecture, and the first lesson was completed in this way. The WATs produced by the students were evaluated, and some action activities were prepared to address the misconceptions identified in this evaluation.

Activities to teach the concepts in the fifth week In the second lesson, the lesson was taught using the CCT prepared for this concept to eliminate the students' misconceptions regarding the concepts "legislature, executive" and "judiciary" identified in the first lesson. In the third lesson, the subject was summed up and at the end of the lesson, the WAT was administered again, and the third lesson was completed in this way. The students' WATs were analysed after school and some action activities were prepared to eliminate the misconceptions identified in this analysis.

From Table 5 it is clear that some words and sentences were written by almost all the students in the pre-test and by every student in the post-test. The concepts for which the least number of words were produced in the pre-test were executive (105), legislature (106), and judiciary (113), which is also the case for the number of sentences. In the post-test, there was a significant increase in the number of words and sentences for all the concepts. This means that meaningful learning occurred during the teaching of the subjects, and this shows that the connections related to these words were formed in the students' cognitive structures after the lectures.

 

 

Overall Assessment and Final Activities for All the Concepts in the Sixth Week In the sixth week, concept puzzles on the concepts studied previously were prepared and administered to the students (cf. Figure 2).

 

 

From Tables 6 and 7, which include the sample sentences presented by the students about key concepts and related words, it is seen that the students formed sentences containing scientific knowledge in the pre-tests, while the number of these sentences increasing in the post-test in which they formed sentences with more qualified and more scientific content. A decrease in the frequency related to the sentences containing non-scientific and superficial information is seen in these tables together with its examples.

In terms of misconceptions, the students completely eliminated the misconceptions they had about three key concepts "democracy", "sovereignty" and "monarchy." The misconceptions in the pre-test regarding the concepts "republic", "theocracy", "oligarchy", "judiciary" and "legislature" were corrected, while very few misconceptions emerged in the post-test. While there were a lot of misconceptions about the concepts "legitimacy" and "execution" in the pre-test, these misconceptions decreased a lot in the post-test.

 

Conclusion

With this study we aimed to examine whether certain misconceptions held by sixth grade students were eliminated by carrying out action research in a social studies course taught with various activities based on concept teaching focusing on 10 concepts in the unit "Adventure of Democracy." For this purpose, 11 activities were carried out during the implementation of the study.

The WAT activities carried out before and after the implementation to eliminate the misconceptions identified regarding the concepts "republic", "monarchy", "oligarchy" and "theocracy", had a positive effect, and the students produced words and sentences for each concept in the post-test. Almost all of the sentences produced regarding these concepts consisted of sentences containing scientific information, and no sentences were left blank in the post-test. The number of misconceptions had decreased significantly.

The WAT activities held before and after the implementation to eliminate the misconceptions identified regarding the concepts "sovereignty", "constitutionalism", "legislature", "executive" and "judiciary" yielded a positive outcome, and the students were able to produce words and sentences related to these concepts in the post-test. Again, almost all of the sentences produced regarding these concepts consisted of sentences containing scientific

facts, and no sentences were left blank in the post-test.

Almost all misconceptions had been eliminated.

The WAT activities carried out before and after the interventions demonstrated a positive effect, and the students were able to produce words and sentences related to each concept in the post-test. Almost all of these sentences contained scientific facts, and no sentences were left blank in the post-test. The number of misconceptions had decreased significantly.

 

Discussion

Teaching key concepts using a concept map as part of the activities had a permanent effect on learning. Compared to traditional teaching, the concept map technique has been shown to increase learning success (Altıntaş & Altıntaş, 2008; Çolak, 2010; Yılmaz, H, Akandere & Korkmaz, 2010; Yılmaz, K & Çolak, 2012; Yılmaz, S 2008), which confirms that concept maps are effective in learning concepts, supported by the results obtained in our study. The concept webs used in teaching concepts were also found to be effective by Tuna (2013), which lends further support to this conclusion.

The WAT activities carried out before and after the implementation to eliminate the misconceptions identified regarding the concept "democracy" had a beneficial effect, and the students produced words and sentences related to the concept in the post-test. Almost all of the sentences produced regarding this concept contained scientific facts, and no sentences were left blank in the post-test. The number of misconceptions had decreased significantly.

The concept map used within the scope of the activity was also determined to be effective in research conducted by Çelikkaya and Kürümlüoğlu (2019), which supports the conclusions reached in our study.

Within the scope of the implementation, teaching the lesson with CCTs was observed to have had a permanent effect on learning. CCTs have also been found to be effective in studies by Kılıçoğlu (2011) and Şarlayan (2017), which supports the result of our study.

It has been shown that concept puzzles were effective in teaching and they allowed constructivist, rather than traditional assessments. Kaymakçı (2012) found that puzzles facilitated teaching, and Alkış (2008) suggests that it is beneficial to use puzzles in teaching. Therefore, it can be concluded that concept puzzles are useful tools in learning concepts, which is in line with the results of our study.

Based on the results, the following suggestions are made:

• Studies on concepts such as republic, democracy, sovereignty, constitutional monarchy, monarchy, oligarchy, theocracy, legislature, judiciary and executive in different units of the social studies course can be done at the same grade level.

• Rather than simple and easy-to-understand examples from daily life, teachers can choose examples from the field of social studies.

• The stages of preparing and using activities to identify and eliminate students' misconceptions can be taught in detail and hands-on through in-service teacher training.

• In the textbooks distributed at the beginning of the academic year, the number of visuals can be increased to show the concepts effectively, and more attention can be paid to the definition of the specific concepts and the inclusion of more activities related to the concepts.

 

Authors' Contributions

TK and MK wrote the manuscript and provided data for the tables. Both authors reviewed the final manuscript.

 

Notes

i. This article has been derived from Mutlu Kürümlüoğlu's master's thesis, "Fixing the misconceptions in the 6th grade social studies lesson, the Adventure of Democracy unit: An action research", conducted under the supervision of Associate Professor, Doctor Tekin Çelikkaya.

ii. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence.

 

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Received: 28 June 2021
Revised: 9 May 2023
Accepted: 1 August 2023
Published: 30 November 2023