The evaluation of the elective courses in secondary schools within the framework of children's participation rights

The aim of this research is to evaluate the implementation of elective courses in secondary schools in the central district of Amasya in 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 academic years and the opinions of the students, parents and teachers regarding the implementation within the framework of children's participation rights. The research in the survey model was conducted with convergent parallel design from mixed research methods. The study group consisted of secondary school students and their parents who participated in interviews; teachers whose written opinions were consulted; fifth, sixth, seventh graders in a secondary school and ninth and tenth graders in a high school who were surveyed and thirteen secondary schools whose elective courses documents were collected. The data were collected by means of the interview, correspondence and questionnaire forms developed by the researcher. Data analysis was realized by qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques depending on the data type. As a result of the study, various problems related to the use of children's participation rights in the choosing and opening processes of elective courses were detected in all thirteen secondary schools in the central district of Amasya. The results obtained at the end of the study: (1) Some of the students had to take courses other than their preferences. (2) The elective courses preferred by a sufficient number of students (10 students) weren't opened in some schools. (3) The elective courses preferred by less than ten students or none of the students were opened in some schools. (4) Parents and school administrators had an effect on the choice of elective courses, which prevented children from exercising their participation rights. (5) Secondary school students were more affected by their families and high school students were more affected by the school administrators in terms of exercising their participation rights in the implementation of elective courses. Depending on the results obtained, concrete suggestions have been developed regarding the determination of the elective courses to be included in the curriculum, the arrangement of the students' preference process and the determination of the courses to be opened by the school administration in a way that enables children to exercise their participation rights effectively. In addition, research proposals have been made to improve the use of children's participation rights in all areas particularly in educational processes in Turkey.