Teaching democratic value in history lessons through visual-based activities

Along with global trends, the individuals today are expected to be able to exercise reasoning and decision-making based on inquiry, be an active member of the society, and keep pace with democracy. This situation takes place in the general objectives of the Turkish national education as individuals "with a general world view and respecting the human rights". Therefore, democratic education stands out as a matter that should be emphasized both for raising the individuals by creating the democratic environment required by the era and for the realization of national education policies. As democracy is a wide concept with the combination of several values such as freedom, equality, human rights, justice, tolerance, love, respect, communication, solidarity, pluralism and peace, it is obligatory to learn democracy by experiencing it. Individuals to know democracy and to make it a behavior by internalizing it is only possible as a result of a sound and effective education. And effective education can be provided with methods leaving a trace in the learning of students. In several studies, the visuality, which was found out to reveal positive results when used in education and which the individuals are intensively exposed to in their daily lives, stands out as an effective method in democracy education. Primary aim of the study is to determine the effects of visual activities in teaching democratic values in history lessons, as well as to determine the opinions of students on democracy and visual-based activities. To that end, a program consisted of visual-based activities was prepared, and it was endeavored to teach the democratic values. A mixed method approach, where quantitative and qualitative study processes were used for enrichment of data and allowing different perspectives, has been employed in the study. The study group of this study is consisted of 88 students at 10th grade of a high school located in Şereflikoçhisar, Ankara during the academic year of 2015-2016. The data collection tools used in the study are "Democratic Values Scale", "Democratic Values Qualitative Information Form", "Activity Process Assessment Form", "Implementer Assessment Form", "Researcher Diary", and "In-Class Studies of Students". Descriptive statistics such as average and standard deviation, paired samples t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were performed in the analysis of qualitative data of the study by using SPSS 22.0 statistics software, and descriptive analysis and content analysis were performed for the analysis of quantitative data. According to the results obtained from the study, where visual-based activities were applied to the experiment group and traditional teacher centric history lessons were provided in the Control 1 and Control 2 groups, it's found out that there is a statistically significant difference in favor of the experiment group. Considering the qualitative findings, it's found out that the experiment group participants have more diverse and more correct perceptions about the values such as democracy, equality, freedom, justice, solidarity, peace, conciliation and restricting the governing power, and that they significantly increase the number of words they use while expressing the democratic values. It's been concluded that the participants mostly liked the events, that the participants mainly ask for the visual-based activities to be applied in subsequent history lessons, that it's been expressed all the values tried to be taught with the activities are learned by the participants; and for the questions regarding information, that the participants have learned democracy and democratic values and understand the importance of democracy and democratic values. Keywords: Democratic Value, Democracy Education, Value Teaching, Visual Activities, Visual Materials, History Education.