An analysis of theattitudes of the 6th and 7th grade students towards social information in terms of vasious variables

The aim of this study is to examine the 6th and 7th grade students' attitudes towards social studies in terms of several variables. In order to identify the attitudes of students towards social studies, a social attitude scale consisting of 26 items has been referred, prepared by Demir and Akengin (2010). Of 26 items in attitude scale, 11 have represented positive and 15 have done negative cases. The students have been requested in this attitude scale to express their views on the attitude items as "strongly agree", "agree", "undecided", "disagree" and "strongly disagree. "The data uploaded to data analysis program has been analyzed by program researcher. In the aim of testing the effect of the variables such as gender, school location, class-level, etc. upon students' attitudes towards social studies, the " t-test", - Mann Whitney U-test and ANOVA tests have been practiced. The population of study is composed of the 6th and 7th grade students studying at secondary schools in the province of Elazig, by the academic year 2012-2013. As for the exemplification, it is composed of 12 schools randomly selected in Elazig, and in its connected district and villages; and of 740 students studying in these schools.VII It has been concluded from the study that the students' overall attitudes towards social studies are generally positive and those of male students are more positive than females'. Besides, the students' attitudes towards social studies, who have attended rural area schools (districts and villages) have been considered more positive than those of students studying in central area. Finally, the 7th grade students' attitudes towards social studies are also more positive than the 6th grade students. Key words: Success, Learning, Social Studies, Attitude