Evaluation of the levels of citizenship consciousness of students grade 8 in terms of several variables

The purpose of this study is to set forth the evaluation of the levels of citizenship consciousness of students grade 8 in secondary school in cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects. In the quantitative section of the study, "Citizenship Consciousness Scale" consisting of four dimension including personal information form, open ended question scale, scale of affective tendencies and behavior scale was applied to 1178 students who continue education in grade 8 in secondary school. Subsequently, in the qualitative section, information were collected, by using interview form approach with a total of 11 Social studies teachers and instructors who worked or work as a teacher in Ministry of Education and who had or have postgraduate education in order to determine results obtained and factors having effect on citizenship consciousness of the students. The analysis of quantitative data was performed by using SPSS 17.0 package program and the descriptive statistics, Kolmogorov Simirnov test, Levene test, Mann Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis test, bonferoni correction method and simple correlation were used in the analysis of data. The content analysis was used in the analysis of qualitative data. Students' levels of citizenship consciousness were calculated according to scores obtained in the face of answers given to open ended question scale, scale of affective tendencies behavior scale forming the scale of citizenship consciousness. The results obtained from quantitative data collection tool of the study can be listed as follows: ? It was concluded that students' information related to citizenship consciousness are in the medium level and affective tendencies and behavior tendencies are in the high level. ? When examining the relationship between cognitive, affective and behavioral field forming the citizenship consciousness; it was determined that there is a significant relationship in the medium level, close to the lower limit in the positive direction between information and perception, and a significant relationship in the medium level, close to the lower limit in the positive direction between information and behavior, and a significant relationship in the medium level, close to the lower limit in the positive direction between perception and behavior. ? It was determined that female students' information related to citizenship consciousness, affective tendencies and behavior tendencies are higher than male students?. ? It was concluded that as parent?s education levels increase, students' information related to citizenship consciousness increase. ? Students' information related to citizenship consciousness did not differ significantly according to mother's occupation; however a significant difference was found between students' score according to father's occupation, and it was determined that scores of students whose father's occupation is officer, independent business, worker and retired are more positive than scores of students whose father is farmer and scores of students whose father's occupation is officer and retired are more positive than averages of students whose father is unemployed. ? Student's information related to citizenship consciousness did not constitute a significant difference according to monthly income status. Averages of students whose family's monthly income is between 1501-2501 and 751-1500 TL are more positive than averages of students whose family's monthly income is less than 750 TL. ? It was determined that there is no significant difference between students' affective tendencies related to citizenship consciousness according to parent?s occupation. ? It was concluded that there is no significant difference between students' behaviors related to citizenship consciousness according to parent's education status. ? It was determined that there is no significant difference between students' behaviors related to citizenship consciousness according to mother's occupation; also that there is a significant difference between students' scores according to father's occupation and average of students whose father is officer is more positive than average of students whose father is farmer, independent business and other. The following conclusions were reached after interview had with teachers in the qualitative dimension of the study: ? In general, teachers stated that there are values and achievements related to citizenship consciousness in the curriculum of Social Studies grade 6 and 7, and however these are not in the adequate level. At the same time, teachers considered school book inadequate in the reflecting of program to school book. In particular, these are one of the problems emphasized by teachers that citizenship subjects in books remain abstract and are not associated with everyday life adequately. ? It was expressed by teacher that especially testing system (SBS) constitutes a major impediment in terms of citizenship education. It was expressed that parents and school management apply pressure on students to increase their nets. Teachers mentioned that they train citizen who make a lot of net rather than training a good citizen. Furthermore, they made an observation that there is no relation between academic achievement and students to be good citizens. ? Teachers stated that students show great interest to citizenship and human rights subjects mostly in Social Studies course and their interests are much higher in the case of subjects are selected from everyday life particularly. ? Participants indicated with their own words that they are inadequate for activities outside the classroom. ? It was emphasized by teachers that especially families remain inadequate and irrelevant in citizenship education and all of the teachers expressed that training a good citizen is related to training families.