The effect of student-designed journals in social studies teaching towards academic success and attitude against the course

This study investigates whether social studies journal prepared as student designed has a positive effect on success and attitude towards the course. A sequential mixed model is used in the study. The study contains 7th grade students in Yaka Secondary School, Başmakçı District of Afyonkarahisar province in the academic year of 2018/2019. Experimental group contains 17 students and control group contains 16 students. Some activities in accordance with the course objectives including the first three units 7th grade Social Studies Curriculum have been made for the experimental group like writing a poem, playing sketch and drama, pantomiming, interviewing, writing a story, writing a letter, preparing a biography, drawing a caricature, conducting research and investigation, drawing a picture, taking a picture, sing a folk song , making a review after watching a film by considering students' interests and talents. These activities have been turned into a 3- issue journal. The units have been taught to the control group without performing activities within the scope of journal. Expert opinion of the groups has been obtained and 25-item multiple choice test whose its reliability has been proven andSocial Studies Attitude Scale of Demir and Akengin (2010) have been applied. According to findings obtained by the research, it has been observed that the students within the experimental group are more successful than the students within the control group in terms of final test success scores It has been determined that Student- designed Social Studies Journal positively affects the attitudes of students in the experimental group towards the course. Keywords: Social studies, success, student- designed journal, teaching, student.