The effect of using the mind mapping technique in 8th grade history of revolution in Turkish Republic and Kemalism lesson on students' academic achievement and attutudes towards the lesson

In education more than one teaching method and technique is used to achieve the right goal. The most important of these methods is the "Mind Mapping" technique, which has started to be used frequently in recent times and its importance is increasing day by day. In this context, the aim of the study carried out is to determine the effect of using the mind mapping technique in 8th grade History of Revolution in Turkish Republic and Kemalism lesson on students' academic achievement and attitudes towards the lesson. In line with this aim, the participants of the study consisted of 68 8th grade students who studied in a secondary school in Yatağan, Muğla in the 2018-2019 academic year. Among these students, 34 students were in the experimental group and 34 students were in the control group. The control and experimental groups were determined according to the convenience sampling. Two experimental groups and two control groups were decided from the classes that have equal number of students. "A National Epic: Istiklal Or Death!" While the unit is processed using the mind maps technique, the same unit as the students in the control group is processed with the methods and techniques stipulated by the current program. While the unit "Milli Bir Destan: Ya İstiklal Ya Ölüm! (A National Epic: Freedom Or Death!) was lectured by using the mind mapping technique with the students in the experimental group, the same unit was taught to the students in the control group using the methods and techniques suggested by the curriculum. In the study, quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test control group was benefitted. Fisrtly, at the beginning of the study, the attitude scale and achievement test were applied to both groups. The achievement test developed by the researcher consisted of 25 questions. The mean difficulty of the achievement test was determined as .57 and KR-20 reliability coefficient as .94. Developed as five-likert scale, 23-item attitude scale consisted of three sub-dimensions: love, interest and importance. For 7 weeks with the students in the experimental group the unit "Milli Bir Destan: Ya İstiklal Ya Ölüm! (A National Epic: Freedom Or Death!) was lectured by using the mind mapping technique on the other hand the same unit was taught to the students in the control group using the methods and techniques suggested by the curriculum. Achievement test and attitude scale were used as data collection instruments in the study. The quantitative dimension of the research was carried out in accordance with the experimental design with pretest-posttest control group. The quantitative data obtained were analyzed with SPSS 22.00. As a result of the research, it was seen that the experimental group using the mind mapping technique was more successful than the control group using the methods and techniques suggested by the curriculum. Kolmogorov Smirnov and Shapiro Wilk tests were used to check whether the data had a normal distribution or not in order to make an accurate analysis on the findings obtained. In addition to that in cases where variances show homogeneous distribution, parametric tests such as Paired Samples Statistics T-Test, Independent Samples Independent T-Test and One Way ANOVA tests were used. In cases where variances do not show a normal distribution, non-parametric equivalent of these tests, Mann-Whitney U test, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test, Kruskall-Wallis-H tests were benefitted. In the analysis of the data, arithmetic mean (X), standard deviation (SD) percentage and frequency values were taken into consideration. P * <, 0.50 significance level was taken into consideration in the evaluation of statistical results. According to the findings, it was observed that there was a statistically significant difference in favor of the experimental group in terms of the mean of the experimental group and the control group post-test academic points. In terms of the attitudes of the students towards History of Revolution in Turkish Republic and Kemalism lesson, there was a difference in favor of the experimental group. Keywords: History of Revolution in Turkish Republic and Kemalism lesson, mind mappings, attitude scale, Academic Achievement Test.