Effects of content-revised texts on students? learning of the republic and democracy concepts

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of the written texts contents of which were arranged on the students? learning of the republic and democracy concepts. The study consists of five chapters; introduction, theoretical background and related studies, the method, the findings and the discussion.The study was carried out with the first grade students studying at the Çukurova University, the Faculty of Education, Department of Elementary Education on instructing the democracy and republic concepts during the 2008-2009 academic year. There were 30 students in the experimental group and there were 30 students in the control group. While the instruction in the experimental group was realized by means of the texts contents of which were revised, the traditional method was followed in the control group.Three different tests related to the content components of republic and democracy concepts were used as data collection tools. In the first test, the students were asked to answer three questions for each concept by writing. In the second test, the students were given 19 country names related to the republic concept and were asked to write those countries? system of government and they were given 19 country names related to the democracy concept and were asked to write those countries? political regimes. In the third test, there was a concept achievement test consisting of 19 multiple choice questions about republic and democracy concepts. These three tests were used as pre-tests before the instruction. The experimental group was instructed through only written texts, and the control group was instructed through the presentation which was used in previous classes of the instructor. After the instruction process, the same three tests were used as post-tests. Qualitative and quantitative analysis were used in analyzing the data in this study.The findings obtained in this study can be summarized as follows:Firstly, the definition of the republic and democracy concepts made by the students, secondly, the examples given for the republic and democracy concepts and lastly, the rationale of those examples were investigated. Then, post-test findings of the experimental group were compared to the control group, and it was found that the experimental group was more successful. The students? classification of each correct example was related to republic and democracy concepts as a correct example and their classification of incorrect examples as incorrect examples were investigated. When the post-test results were investigated, it was found that the experimental group was more successful in classifying the correct examples and incorrect examples about republic and democracy concepts. When the students? results in the concept achievement test were considered, it was found that the experimental group was more successful than the control group in post-tests.Keywords: Written Text, Concept Learning, Concept Teaching, Concept Analysis, Republic, Democracy