Students' opinions on the use of virtual museums in social studies course (a case from Istanbul)

This study was prepared according to the phenomenology design, which is one of the qualitative research methods, in order to determine the opinions of the students about the use of virtual museums in the Social Studies course. The study is limited to 100 students studying in the 7th grade of a secondary school in Arnavutköy district of Istanbul in the 2nd semester of the 2020-2021 academic year. In the study, the students were first given a virtual tour of the 'Liberation War Museum' and the 'Republican Museum'. In order for the students to visit the virtual museums consciously, 2 activity sheets were distributed and they were asked to complete the given tasks. After the activity, a questionnaire consisting of open-ended questions prepared by the researcher was distributed to the students and their opinions were taken. The answers given by the students to the survey questions were analyzed by descriptive analysis method. As a result of the analysis of the data, the students who participated in the study preferred real museum tours to virtual museum tours for reasons such as not reflecting the museum atmosphere, not touching the artifacts, and not seeing the artifacts live. However, they stated that since the virtual museum application eliminates many obstacles in reaching the museum, its use in the lessons will contribute to their learning of the Social Studies course. As a result, according to the answers given to the survey questions, the students stated that virtual museum tours facilitated their learning in the Social Studies course and benefited their lessons.