The effect of heritage education in the social studies course on students? attitudes toward tangible cultural heritage and their academic achievement

The aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of heritage education during the 6th grade elementary school Social Studies course on the pupils? attitudes toward cultural heritage and their academic achievement. The sequential explanatory design, a mixed method approach to research design, was used. First, quantitative data were collected and subsequently qualitative data were collected to support the quantitative findings.In the quantitative phase of the study, a quasi-experimental design was used to collect pre-test and post-test data from both an experimental and a control group. This phase was conducted during the spring semester of the 2010-2011 academic year. The 6th grade pupils of the Sincan Atatürk Elementary School formed the sample of the study. A total of 76 pupils participated in the study, with 38 constituting the experimental group and 38 constituting the control group.The qualitative stage of the study was conducted using focus group interviews and document analysis. 30 participants from the experimental group were chosen to take part in the focus group interviews. 360 documents were analysed.Four different data collection instruments were used in the current study. In the quantitative phase, a tangible cultural heritage attitude scale and a tangible cultural heritage academic achievement scale were used. In the qualitative phase, a 10-question interview form and 360 documents collected during 11 different activities were used.In the current study, SPSS 18.0 was used for the quantitative analysis. More specifically, the data analysis was conducted using one-way variance analysis, the independent samples t-test and the paired samples t-test. Content analysis was used during the qualitative phase.According to the findings of the quantitative data analysis, it was observed that the participants? attitudes toward tangible cultural heritage were affected positively. Similarly, it was observed that heritage education during the social science lesson increased the participants? academic achievement toward tangible cultural heritage. In the control group, in which the lessons were conducted using the textbook, no positive change was observed in the participants? attitudes toward concrete cultural heritage. Similarly, no increase was observed in the participants? academic achievement related to cultural heritage. When the post-tests of the experimental and control groups were compared, it was observed that there was a significant difference in favour of the experimental group.The qualitative findings of the study showed that the participants receiving heritage education displayed a positive attitude toward tangible cultural heritage, and that they expressed the necessity to protect concrete cultural heritage, that concrete cultural heritage was a source of knowledge about the past, and that it was necessary to pass it on to future generations. They also expressed that they enjoyed themselves and their curiosities were aroused during cultural heritage activities; that these activities were not included in the textbooks; and they emphasised that they were similar to experiments. It was observed that the participants made connections between the activities and their daily lives. The participants expressed that they were pleased with the field trips, that they felt excited during the trips and that they felt as though they had gone back into the past. It was noticed that the participants were affected by the negative attitudes of people toward tangible cultural heritage. In this context, the qualitative data supported the quantitative findings.