Examination of students' opinions regarding the historical curiosity in teaching 8th grade History of Turkish Revolution and Kemalism subjects

In this thesis, it is aimed to reveal the elements of which the 8th grade students are curious about the History of Turkish Revolution and Kemalism and to examine the reasons for their curiosity. The problem of this thesis study is to see how the 8th grade students' historical curiosity about the 'individuals, place, and time as well as how curious they are within the framework of the Rebuplic of Turkey History of Turkish Revolution and Kemalism. In this study, case study design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. The study group of the research consists of 31 8th grade students of a school affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in Denizli in the 2020-2021 academic year. In the research, an interview form consisting of open-ended questions was used as a Data collection tool. According to the findings obtained from this thesis study, the people that students are the most curious about are Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Kazım Karabekir and İsmet İnönü. The events that students are the most curious about are the wars of the national struggle period and the rebellions against the Turkish Grand National Assembly, respectively. The places that the students are the most curious about are the fronts of the national struggle period, Thessaloniki and Çanakkale. The time period that the students are the most curious about is the era of national struggle and the death of Atatürk. According to the findings obtained from this thesis study, it is seen the male character is more wondered than the female character. It has been concluded that female characters are neglected. It is normal for individuals to be curious about their own history. It has been concluded that the students are more curious about the local characters, and this is a normal situation. It is also seen that 8th grade students aimed at military and political history in the subjects History of Turkish Revolution and Kemalism. It has been concluded that the social, religious, artistic-literary and cultural aspects of history teaching are ignored and neglected and history is stuck in a military-political framework. According to the findings obtained from this research, there is a parallelism among the period, person and event that 8th grade students are curious about. Keywords: curiosity, History of Turkish Revolution and Kemalism, historical curiosity