Examining the knowledge levels of secondary school 8th grade students on natural and cultural tourism values in Tokat

The aim of the research was to determine the knowledge of the 8th grade students about the natural and cultural tourism values of the province of Tokat in terms of various variables. This research, which was carried out using the general survey model, which is one of the quantitative research methods, was carried out with a total of 517 8th grade students in the city center of Tokat in the 2021-2022 academic year. Easy sample type was used in the selection of the sample. The natural and cultural heritage awareness questionnaire personal information form developed by Çetin and Gürgil (2014) was used in the research. The applied questionnaire consists of 3 parts. In the personal information form in the first part, the students' gender, mother and father education, residence, income, the status of the students taking tourism courses and the level of participation in the trips were determined, while the tourism preferences of the students were included in the second part. Finally, the third part consists of a 25-item knowledge test about the natural and cultural tourism values of the province of Tokat. For the purpose of the study, frequency (f), percentage (%), arithmetic mean (x̄) related to the demographic characteristics of the students participating in the research were used, and Excel program was used to calculate the item difficulty and item discrimination values of the prepared achievement test. According to the status of the variables, t-test for gender, taking tourism lessons, participation in trips; One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed on the variable of residence, mother and father education, income, tourism preferences. As a result of the research, it was concluded that there is a significant difference in the knowledge of secondary school 8th grade students about the natural and cultural values of Tokat province according to gender, residence, income, tourism trip variables. It was concluded that the scores of the students in the knowledge test of the province of Tokat were not high, and their knowledge of the natural and cultural values of Tokat was at a moderate level. In this context, 8th grade students; One-to-one excursion-observation arrangements can be made for natural and cultural places (Museum, Inn, Turkish Bath, Madrasa, Waterfall, etc.). In order to increase the knowledge level of the students, active participation of the students should be ensured in the trips made under the virtual tour, even if it is online.