The effect of active learning techniques on correcting misconceptions in social studies lessons in primary education

For the first time in their lives after the students start primary school life, they encounter some of the concepts. Students can have difficulty to understand for this kind of concepts which are faced first time, and can be confused or mistaken which is related with concepts. On the other hand, it has a big importance that how the concepts are taught. The main purpose of this study is to determine whether there is an effect of active learning techniques in the program of social studies which is prepared in accordance with constructivist approach, for student achievement and correcting misconceptions.Research was completed at privacy school of Sakarya University Foundation School in Sakarya in 2010-2011 education year. Before this research, literature was investigated ?our country and the world concept form? was prepared according to both literature and in terms of teachers who work in educational area, it was applied as pretest/posttest.This research contains four parts. The first part includes importance, definition and historical development of social studies, and definition of education program of social studies. After that, what the concepts are, properties of concepts, teaching, importance and reasons of misconceptions, importance of concepts in social program lesson, learning and teaching processes, and active learning methods was explained.In the second part, examples from research which is about correcting misconceptions were given. In the third part, collection of data, procedure, model, phase, sample, solution and interpretation of research were included. Fourth part, findings of research, interpretations and results that were found according to findings were included as the last and finally thesis was completed with suggestions which were given accordance these results. Applied data collection tool is ?our country and the world concept form? which is containing 14 open ended questions to determine misconceptions and measure information levels of students for concepts in selected topic. Data collection tool was taken care of being valid and reliable for research. SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) software was used to evaluate collected data. After analyzing of data and statistical evaluation, below results were found:1. When ?Our country and world? topics are evaluated with active learning method, it is found that this method has positive effect to correct student?s misconceptions.2. The result of educational activities which are conducted depend on active learning techniques, misconceptions which is decreased in favor of experimental group is independent from effect of gender variable. In control group which is applied traditional teaching methods, it is determined that there is a significant difference in favor of girls.Keywords: Social Studies, Misconception, Active Learning