The effect of conceptual change texts on overcoming the misconceptions in the social studies courses

In this study, students' level of understanding the concepts mentioned in the unit were determined and misconceptions about the concepts were detected. In addition to this, it is important that the misconceptions in the study and the teaching approaches and materials used for overcoming misconceptions are useful for the teachers and the researchers who will work on this issue.The aim of the research is to analyze the effects of conceptual change texts in the conceptual change approach on the misconceptions in 7th grade students "Journey to Turkish History" unit. The study group of the research was formed from 7/A and 7/C students at Prof. Dr. Erol Güngör secondary school which is in the center of Kırşehir. From these classrooms 7/ A (n: 22) was experimental and the 7 /C was control group (n: 27). In the study, unequal control grouped design was used. While the concepts were being defined, a questionnaire form was used in which 7th class social studies teacher textbook (MEB, 2015) included concepts targeted to students in the Journey to Turkish History unit and students could give the meaning of concepts as short written answers. While the answers given by the students to the concepts in the form were evaluated, the explanations made about the concepts in the textbook and the statements of the Great Turkish Dictionary (TDK, 2016) were taken into account. The answers given by the students were classified as correct understanding of concepts, misconceptions and misses, and the percentage and frequency values were taken and 6 concepts were found to be the most misconceptions according to the interpreted results. While in the experimental group, conceptual change texts were used in order to eliminate students' misconceptions about the concepts of age, aesthetics, conquest, holy war, reform, settlement, a program based teaching approach was applied in eliminating the fallacy of these concepts in the control group. In order to collect data in the study, Concept Achievement Test (CAT) developed by researcher were used. Descriptive statistics, t-test for unrelated samples, and two-way ANOVA were performed using the SPSS 20 package program for the analysis of pretest and posttest scores of the students in the experimental and control groups. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that there was no statistically significant difference between experimental and control groups in terms of Achievement Test and Concept Test scores in pre - test, and there was a meaningful difference in favor of experimental group in post-test. As a result of the research, it has been determined that teaching and materials based on the conceptual change approach are more effective in eliminating the misconceptions that exist in the students related to the concepts of age, aesthetics, conquest, holy war, reform and settlement compared to program based activities.Key words: Conceptual Change Text, Misconceptions, Social Studies