The effect of instructional strategies which are suggested by obenchain and morris on elemantary school sixth grade students academic achievement, retention and attitudes towards social studies

In the present study, the effect of instructional strategies which are suggested by Obenchain and Morris on elemantary school sixth grade students academic achievement, retention and toward social studies was investigated.The study was conducted at two public elemantary school in the Seyhan district of Adana in 2006-2007 academic year.The subject of the study consisted of total 75 students that they were divided in one experimantal and one control groups. The groups were equialized according to their social studies academic achievement and social studies attitude scale pretest scores.The measurement instruments fort he study were ?Social Studies Academic achievement Test? and ? Social Studies Attitude Scale? both of which were administered as pre test, post test and retention test to measure academic achievement and attitudes toward social studies. It was used ?Interview Form? to get student opinios about instructional strategies.Data were processed by using t test and covarience analysis. It was used content analysis technique for interview data.Findings from academic achievement post and retention test mean score revealedthat there were not statistically significant difference between experimental and control groups.No significant differences were found in terms of the social studies attitude scale post test scores of experimental and control groups, but significant differences were found in terms of retention test scores.At the end of the analysis of interview data that was processed from the interviews with experimental and control groups, it was revealed that the students in the experimental groups expressed (arrounced) more positive views than the students in the control groups.Keywords: Instructional strategies, Social Studies, Academic achievement,Attitude, Retention