The effect of evidence-based education on scientific thinking and decision making skills in social sciences education

The aim of the research is to reveal the relationships between evidence-based teaching practices and scientific thinking and decision-making skills in social studies teaching. In order to achieve this aim, answers to the following questions were sought. 1. Is there a significant difference between the scientific thinking skills scores of the experimental group, in which evidence-based teaching activities were applied, in the "Global Connections" learning field of the 7th grade Social Studies lesson in secondary school? 2. Is there a significant difference between the scientific thinking skill scores of the control group, in which non-skill-based traditional teaching was applied, in the "Global Connections" learning field of the Secondary School 7th Grade Social Studies course? There is a significant difference between the scientific thinking skill scores of the experimental group, in which evidence-based teaching activities were applied in the "Global Connections" learning area of the 3rd secondary school 7th grade Social Studies course, from the pre-test application and the scientific thinking skills scores of the control group, which were applied non-skill-based teaching, from the pre-test application. is it? 4. Is there a significant difference between the decision-making skills scores of the experimental group, in which evidence-based teaching activities were applied, in the "Global Connections" learning area of the 7th grade Social Studies course in secondary school? 5. Is there a significant difference between the decision-making skills scores of the control group, in which non-skill-based teaching was applied, in the "Global Connections" learning area of the 7th grade Social Studies course, in the pre-test and post-test application? 6. Is there a significant difference between the decision-making skills scores of the experimental group, in which evidence-based teaching activities were applied, from the pre-application, and the decision-making skills scores of the control group, in which non-skill-based teaching was applied, from the pre-application, in the "Global Connections" learning area of the 6th secondary school 7th grade Social Studies lesson? 7. What is the result of students' constructing perspective and meaning according to the rubric evaluation of the evidence-based "United Nations" activity? 8. What is the result of students' constructing perspective and meaning according to the rubric evaluation of the evidence-based activity "Looking at Gender Roles"? 9. What is the result of students' constructing perspective and meaning according to the rubric evaluation of the evidence-based "Syrian Immigrants" activity? 10. What is the result of students' constructing perspective and meaning according to the rubric evaluation of the evidence-based "Global Warming" activity? 11. What is the result of students' constructing perspective and meaning according to the rubric evaluation of the evidence-based "Erosion" activity? This research was carried out on the basis of convergent parallel design from mixed research designs. For the quantitative dimension of the study, a pretest-posttest control group experimental design (OSKD) model was designed. The study group of the research consisted of 51 students, 26 boys and 25 girls, who were studying in the 7th grade of a public school located in the center of Tokat in the 2021-2022 academic year. These students were determined by criterion sampling, one of the purposive sampling methods. An academic achievement test developed by the researcher was used to determine the students in the experimental and control groups. In order to collect the necessary quantitative data about the experimental design in the research; The "Scientific Thinking Skills Scale" developed by Göktürker (2005) and the "Decision-Making Skills Scale" developed by Sever (2019) were used. The scientific thinking and decision-making skills scale was applied to the experimental and control groups before and after the lesson in accordance with the topics in the "Global Connections" learning area. As a qualitative data collection tool, worksheets of evidence-based learning activities for the "Global Connections" learning field were used. In the experimental process, Shapiro-Wilk, Skewness and Kurtosis (Kurtosis) were used in the normality tests of the data obtained from the study groups. Shapiro-Wilk, Skewness and Kurtosis tests were performed for the normality analysis of the data obtained from the study groups during the experimental processing processes. Descriptive analysis method was used in the analysis of qualitative data. Evidence-based activities were scored according to the rubric prepared by the researcher at the end of the process, and the level of students' realization of the activities was determined. As a result of the research, there was a statistically significant difference between the general scientific thinking skills scale of the students in the experimental group and the pre-test and post-test scores in the sub-dimensions of the scale. turned out to be. According to the research findings, most of the students participated in the activities applied in the "Global Connections" learning area with the evidence-based learning method, answered the questions in the activities and produced a product. When the evidence-based "United Nations", "Syrian Immigrants", "Erosion" activities were evaluated according to the students' perspective and meaning-making, most of the students were able to make sense of the evidence by giving answers in the average category; It has been determined that most of the students benefited from the evidence sufficiently by giving answers in the qualified category according to the students' perspective and meaning creation in the "Looking at Gender Roles" and "Global Warming" activities. Keywords: Social studies teaching, evidence-based teaching, scientific thinking skills, decision making skills