Students' skill of using evidence in evidence-based history teaching

This research aimed to determine the evidence-use skills of 8th-year students based on activities carried out with the evidence-based history teaching method. The study group of the research consists of 33 secondary school 8th-year students, 19 girls and 14 boys, studying in central Sinop in the autumn semester of the 2019-2020 academic year. The research activity was carried out within the scope of the topic of "Developments in the Fields of Education and Culture", which is contained in the "Kemalism and Modernization of Turkey" part of the Secondary School 8th-Year course of "Republic of Turkey's Revolution History and Kemalism". The activities to be used for the research were developed by the researcher, and two field experts were consulted for this purpose. In line with the opinions and suggestions received from the experts, the design for activities was finalized and the implementation stage started. In this stage, by providing the students with first and second-hand historical evidence, they were led to carry out evidence-based activities, and in the end, their ability to use evidence, including by utilizing and questioning such evidence, was tried to be determined. Discourse analysis and descriptive analysis were used to evaluate the data obtained from the research. It was seen that although the students had difficulties in identifying, comprehending, paraphrasing, extrapolating (imagining), analysing, synthesizing and evaluating the evidence at the beginning of the courses, they managed to develop these skills as they worked on historical evidence. The columnist activity was one in which the students were most able to exhibit their skills of memorizing, comprehending, analysing, extrapolating, synthesizing, judging and evaluating evidence. It was observed in the columnist activity, however, that very few students actualized the ability to judge and evaluate based on evidence. It was concluded in a general evaluation of the students' skills that, in the first place, almost all of them grasped the evidence and that they were able use their skills in memorizing in the second, extrapolating in the third, analysing in the fourth, and synthesizing in the fifth place. One of the remarkable results of this study is that students were more successful at grasping illustrated historical evidence rather than written and auditory evidence. It was also determined that they were more willing to work on this evidence. However, they had difficulties in understanding the documentaries they watched and obtaining information from them. It was observed that students who learned history through evidence-based activities were able to grasp different thoughts, that some of them, albeit in a small number, evaluated events with different perspectives, understood through empathy the feelings and thoughts of people living in the respective period, and realized that it would not be right to look at the events from a single perspective. It was ascertained in consideration of the skills the students gained and developed in the courses taught based on evidence that it is possible to teach and improve these skills by spreading evidence-based historical activities in classroom education.