The effect of educational song usage on the teaching process in social studies education

Music is a phenomenon that lives with it in every period of human life (childhood, youth, adulthood, old age), which one cannot manage without. Besides its individual, social, cultural, economic, national, international functions, music also has an educational aspect. In other words, music has an educational quality in essence. The use of music as a teaching material in education is mostly referred to as an "educational song". The motivational aspect of educational songs is very important in education. The students have more fun and their interest in the lesson increases in the lessons that are made with educational songs. The increased interest in the course affects the learning process positively. On the other hand, the effect of educational songs on remembering is also very important. The rhythm and lyrics of the songs have a catchy effect. For this reason, benefiting from educational songs especially on abstract subjects in education can increase the catchiness of the subject. Social studies lesson is also a course with very abstract topics. Educational songs can be used to teach these topics in a fun way and make them memorable. In addition, social studies lesson is seen by the students as a boring and memorizing lesson. Educational songs can also be used to increase students' interest in the lesson and to change their perspectives. In this study, the effect of using educational songs with instructional materials on the academic achievement and permanence in the social studies teaching process was investigated. The mixed model in which quantitative and qualitative research methods are applied together was used in the research. In order to determine the effect of the songs used in the 7th grade social studies course in primary education on the cognitive (knowledge and skills) of the students in the related course and also on the permanence of their learning, an experimental pattern with "pretest-posttest control group" was used. Among the qualitative research methods, phenomenology (phenomenology) method was used. The study group of the study consists of students studying in 7 / A and 7 / B classes studying in a village school in Tokat / Center in 2019-2020 academic year. While the 7 / B class was the experimental group, the 7 / A class was determined as the control group. There are 14 students in experimental group and 12 in control group. The students who take place in experimental group, form the study group in the qualitavite dimension of the search. In the research, academic achievement test and student interview form were used to collect data. As a result of the research, it was revealed that the experimental group, where educational songs were used as teaching materials, was more successful than the control group in terms of academic success. Also, after 12 weeks, the achievement test was re-applied to the experimental and control group students. While quantitative data has been resolved with Mann Withney U and Wilcoxon, qualitative data has been resolved with content analysis method. When the application results were analyzed, it was observed that the permanence results of the experimental group students were higher than the control group students. Looking at the open-ended questionnaires, it was seen that the experimental group students gave positive feedback on the teaching of lessons with educational songs. The students stated that the lessons taught with educational songs were fun and beautiful, and the educational songs were instructive and catchy. They stated that almost all of the participants should be used to use educational songs in other lessons or subjects.