The relationship between primary school grade 5 students learning levels of the concepts presented in the social studies course 'adım adım Türkiye' and their attitude towards the course

The course of social study is a course which prepares children for life, informs them of the events which have happened or to happen at home and in the world, and most important, which aims their becoming good citizens and human beings. Considering the content of the course, ?concepts? are very important for teaching social sciences. They are almost one of basic elements because lack of getting the concepts causes lack of efficiency to learn the lesson as well. Students? attitude towards the course may have an effect over learning new concepts. A student who displays a negative attitude towards the Social Study course may effect the students? motivation in class and lower its attention level and because of this reason the performance of the student may change accordingly. On the contrary, a student which displays a positive attitude will approach with an uttermost interest; therefore its performance will increase accordingly. In this way, learning the concepts in the course will become faster and an easy learning process will be seen.This research has been conducted in order to analyse the relationship primary school grade 5 students? learning levels of the concepts presented in the social studies course ?Adım Adım Türkiye? and their attitude towards the course.The research was conducted with descriptive survey model. The study group of the research consist of 361 students who study in grade 5 of five elementary schools in the centre of Çankaya county of Ankara province which were selected through random method.In the research, information test consisting of 20 questions with 4 choices which was developed by the researcher so as to determine the grade 5 students? understanding level of the concepts in the ?Adım Adım Türkiye? unit and ?Attitude Scale for the Course of Social Studies? which had been developed by Çalışkan (2008) to measure students? attitude to the course were used as data collection tools. The data?s have been analyzed by using SPSS 16 statistics programme. Within the scope of the research students personal characteristics and their learning level of the concepts has been determined by benefiting from frequency and percentages. Independent Sample t-test has been made check whether students concept learning level changes from school type variable. Correlation Analysis has determined whether there is a relationship between students? concept learning level and their attitude towards the course. The findings gained at the end of the research are given as follows:It has been determined that;?According to `Concept Knowledge Test? which measures primary school grade 5 students? knowledge of concepts; the students don?t fully learn the concepts of ? secularism?, ?Chronology?, ?Sultanate?, ?Cultural Element?, ?Place? and ?Value?.?Primary school grade 5 students? learning level of concepts significantly changes based on the type of school where they study,?The attitude of grade 5 students towards the course of Social Studies has been found high,?The attitude of grade 5 students towards the course of Social Studies does not change significantly based on the variable of school type,?It has been determined that there is a positive and significant relationship between attitude of grade 5 students towards the course of Social Studies and their learning level of concepts in this course.Key Words: Primary School, Social Studies, Concept Learning