Examination of primary school 4th grade students' perception related to values in Turkish textbooks

The increase in negative behaviors in recent years has led to an increase on the importance given to values education in many countries. Educational institutions are trying to help individuals to create robust character by adding values education into the training which they have given since the early ages. There are more Turkish lessons than any other courses in the curriculum. Thus it provides an opportunity for transmission of values to more students in Turkish lessons. Also the texts that have a great role in the processing of Turkish courses play a major role in transmitting values to students. The textbooks belong to Primary, elementary and high schools are published in the Journal of Communication after obtaining the approval of the Ministry of Education Head Council of Education and Morality. In the 2014-2015 academic year, the names of the Turkish textbooks published by 20 different houses to be taught in Turkish lessons of fourth grades were published in the Journal of Communication (No. 2676 January 2014). Phenomenology which is one of the qualitative research designs was used in this research. Data was composed of an interview form consisting of four open-ended questions and a reading text, the answers of the students, the students' pictures consists of the pictures and texts created by the students about the values in the texts. The content analysis was used to analyze the collected qualitative data. Frequency and percentage analysis were used. Data was categorized according to themes and was reported by interpreting obtained categories. 20 (twenty) 4th grade students studying in two different classes at a primary school in Battalgazi province of Malatya in the 2014-2015 academic year participated in the study. Researcher gathered up the students two class periods in a week and a total of 8 weeks. Each week, texts were read in one of the course periods, the questions related to the texts were answered in a written form. In the next class period, new texts written and pictures were drawn about the values taken part in the texts. According to the results of the study, it has been seen that the students correctly understood the values taken part in 8 texts in 4th grade Turkish textbooks such as "being fair, giving importance to family unity, independence, peace, being scientific, sedulity, solidarity, honesty, sensitivity, tolerance, aesthetics, hospitality, freedom, give importance to being healthy, respect, love, responsibility, cleanliness, patriotism, cooperation ".