The effect of using current events in the 5th grade Social Studies lesson on the students' success and retainment level

The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of the use of Current Events on the 5th grade students? levels of academic success and of memorization in the subject of social sciences. In this study, the experimental design with pre-test and post-test control group. The investigation was carried out in 5-B and 5-D classes, determined as experiment and control groups, in İzmir Şehit Astsubay Ümit Başaran Primary School, in the 2nd term of 2011-2012 academic year. A total of 52 primary school 5th grade students were included in the investigation; 26 of them were in experiment group and 26 in the control group. The implementation of the study took place in teaching the subject of ?Those working for society? in social sciences. The students in the experiment group were taught the use of current events and the students in control group were taught the use of traditional teaching methods. The investigation was carried out in a period of totally 15 class hours as 3 hours per week. A questionnaire in an attempt to use in equalizing the students, a test for success which is to measure the academic success and the level of memorizing what has been learned, lesson plan, lesson handouts, teaching materials for in-class activities for handling the lesson of social sciences in accordance with current events, and also a questionnaire form aiming to take the students? opinions about the use of current events were formed so as to gather data in the investigation. SPSS 15 package program was utilized in all statistical analyses about the investigation. The average points of groups and the standard deviation of their point distribution were accounted. In intra-group and inter-groups comparisons, Mann Whitney U test and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test were utilized and significance level was determined to be .05 reliance level. The following results were obtained after the data analyses made: 1- There is a significant difference in favor of experiment group between the academic success of experiment group for which currents events were used in the social sciences class and success of control group for which traditional teaching was used in then social sciences class. So, it is observed that the usage of current events contributes the academic successes of experimental group. In other words, this study reveals that usage of current events is more effective than the traditional teaching in social studies lesson. 2- There is a significant difference in favor of experiment group in terms of the level of memorizing between the experiment group for which current events were used in the social sciences lesson and control group for which traditional teaching was used. In other words, this study reveals that the usage of current events is more effective than the traditional teaching in aspects of the students? rememberance on the informations in social studies lesson. 3- The opinions of students were positive towards the usage of current events. They think that current events provide enjoyable learning and increase their awareness. Also, according to the interview forms, the students were determined to have quite positive opinions regarding the class practices in which current events were used.