The effect of folk songs on the academic success in the teaching of social studies

This study aims at determining the effect of folk songs on the academic success in the teaching of social studies. The importance of folk songs as cultural heritage and the necessity of transferring this heritage of cultural values and customs to new generations via folk songs are highlighted in this study.This study is realized by making use of the experimental design model. For collecting data, success test and student opinion survey are used. Measurement instruments are applied to 40 students of 8th-year in Namık Kemal Elementary School in the Çankaya district of Ankara. In the analysis of the sub-problems of study the frequency, percentage and arithmetic mean values were handled by using Mann Whitney U-Test and Wilcoxon signed rank test.The symptoms of the research proves that there is a remarkable difference between pre-test and post-test markings for the unit ?Ya İstiklâl Ya Ölüm? among the experiment group students who joined the study. The observed difference is in favor of post-test markings. According to the results, it can be said that the education supported with folk songs had a considerable effect on increasing the success of students at the unit of ?Ya İstiklâl Ya Ölüm?.According to the symptoms of research, the post-test markings of the ?Ya İstiklâl Ya Ölüm? unit has a remarkable difference among the experiment and control group students. Considering the rank average it can be understood from the teaching of the unit of ?Ya İstiklâl Ya Ölüm? that the experiment group students who were applied the education method supported with folk songs had a greater success in comparison with the control group students who were applied traditional education methods. In terms of this result, it can be said that education method supported with folk songs is effective to increase the success of the student.According to the results obtained from the `student opinion survey?, the education method supported with folk songs, as an lecture instrument, is partially effective in increasing the motivation of students, establishing relations between different subjects and visualization of the learning processes.