Teaching values to elementary students using school songs

The aim of this research is to determine whether school songs are effective in having elementary school 5th class students gain and raise awareness about such values as sharing, tolerance and responsibility.A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods is used in the study. The matching-only pretest-posttest control group design, which is one of the quasi-experimental models, was used for the quantitative phase of the study. For the qualitative part, case study design was used.The research was conducted in a state elementary school with a low socio economic status located in the second educational region of Malatya province during 2011-2012 school year. The experiment and control groups comprised 20 students each, who were selected from two classes with similar characteristics. Data were collected using personal information form, Values in Music Lesson Scale, open-ended questionnaire form and expert opinion forms. Researcher implemented a special value-education program in the experiment group for 2 hours along 10 weeks. The lessons in control group, however, were conducted in accordance with the official curriculum as specified by the ministry of national education. At the end of the program, control and experiment group students? scores from the scale and their answers to the open-ended questionnaire form were compared to understand the effect of the special value-education program implemented in the experiment group. As a result of the analysis, the quantitative findings indicated that the music education program, which included school songs about such values as sharing, tolerance, and responsibility, were more effective in helping the students gain and raise awareness about these values. The qualitative findings, on the other hand, showed that compared to control group, students in experiment group had more consistent and richer views about the "definition of sharing, what can be and cannot shared, characteristics of a sharing person; definition of tolerance, what can be and cannot tolerated, characteristics of a tolerant person; definition of responsibility, their responsibilities, people they are responsible, and characteristics of a responsible person". As a result, it was concluded that qualitative and quantitative findings were consistent with each other, and using school songs in values education is effective. Keywords: Values Education, Music Education, School Songs, Sharing, Tolerance, Responsibility.