The effect of academic achievement in geography teaching conceptual change approach

This research aims to determine 10th grade student?s level of understanding concepts taking place in ?Environment and Society?, a learning domain and misconceptions in addition to arming to overcome misconceptions with the approach of conceptual change. The sample of the research is composed of two 10th grade classes in a vocational high school of Altındağ, the county of Ankara. Semi experimental design was used in the research. One of the clases was chosen as the control group (n = 24) whereas the other was determined as an experimental group (n = 24) In teaching of ?Environment and Society? a learning domain of Geography course, conceptual change text and concept maps were used in the experimental group while the other teaching methods concerning the curriculum were used. Achievement test, interview with teachers and classroom observations were used to collect data. The analysis of experimental and control group pretest and past-test scores were made with one way analysis of variance. Results of the analysis showed that there was no statistically meaningful difference between the experimental and control groups. In pre-test in terms of the success to understand concept whereas there was a meaningful difference on behalf of the experimental group in past-test. At the end of the research, it was found that teaching methods and materials based on conceptual change approach in teaching of ?Environment and Society?, a learning domain of the course were more effective than the other teaching methods. Mereover, some suggestions were made to researchers, teachers and curriculum specialists.