Map skills in primary school social studies education

The purpose of this study is to investigate the second grade of primary school students? map skills, and to present the case of map skills and their being visualised on 6.th and 7.th grade of Social Studies course books.The research was carried out in cooperation with scanning model, qualitative, and quantitative techniques. Data was collected by a performance test developed by the researcher. The measurement tool is applied to 1080 student of 6th,7th,8th grades in Tokat, and Ankara(Mimar Kemal Primary School, AnıttepePrimary School, Hamdullah Suphi Primary School, Özel Maya Primary School, Gazi University İnst,tution Primary School, Bilim Private Primary School, Gazi Osman Paşa Primary School, Cumhuriyet Primary School, İbn-i Kemal Primary School, Olgunlar Private Primary School, İpek Private Primary School, Yıldırım Private Primary School,) in 2008-2009 academic year. In analysing the sub-problems of the research One-Way Anova, and t- Test were used.In means of quantitative findings it can be concluded that the test results of second grade of primary school students? map skills are variable depending on tehir classes. According to the come outs of the mixed tests, the variable is in favour of 8.th grade students as their average (18.67) was higher than 7.th grade students? average (17.72).The map skills of the second grade of private primary school students are better than those second grade of government school students.The studenst who live in developed cities are also more likely to have better map skills than the students who live in small cities.When it comes to the teachers? graduation licence type; studenst who have teachers graduating from social studies are better in map skills than the students who have teachers of history, or geograpyh.Also, it is discovered that the higher the maths marks are, the better the students? map skills accordingly.Finally, it is seen that the skills of understanding and interpreting symbols, finding directions, reading and interpreting maps, using measurement tool, measuring distance, determining location and coordinat of the second grade of primary school students changes depending on their type of schools. The cahnges are in favour of private schools.For the qualitative part, 6th, and 7th classes social studies course books were analysed contextually. Firstly texts from 6th, and 7th classes social studies course books were examined and six skills of map skills were analysed contextually as the top theme.As a conclusion of this analysis it can be seen that the ability to find a location or a coordinate among 6th graders has the biggest share among other themes as it is %30 percentage.The ability to understand and interpret the symbols has the least share as it has only %5 percentage.Among the 7th graders, the ability to understand and interpret the maps has the biggest share as it has %37 percentage.The theme having the least share among other top themes is the ability to understand and interpret the symbols and the ability to use the measurement tool as it has %10 percentage. There was no issue concerning the distance among the themes. Furthermore, the images on 6th, and 7th classes course books were also examined.The ability to define location and coordinate with 6th grade social studies course book has the biggest part among other themes as it has %37 percentage, but the ability to measure distance has the least part as it has %1 percentage.On the other hand, the ability to understand and interpret maps on the 7th grade social studies course books has the biggest share among other themes, whereas the ability to use the measurement tool has the least share as it has %10 percentage.The ability to measure the distance did not have a place as a theme. With the help of these findings suggessions are offered for teaching map skills and any other future researches.