War and peace at history education: An evaluation of the knowledge and attitudes of secondary school students concerning the issues of war and peace

The aim of the study was to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes of secondary school students regarding war and peace. In this purpose, in the term of 2011-2012 educational period, a practice was carried out in the central towns of Altındağ, Çankaya, Mamak and Yenimahalle in the city of Ankara. A mixed method which enables to use both quantitative and qualitative methods together was used.In order to form the scales to be used in the study, literature was scanned as a first step regarding the issue. Scales used both in Turkey and abroad in practical researches dealing with the issue were determined. Secondarily, students at secondary education were asked to write a composition about war and peace and their ideas related to this issue were tried to be determined. Depending on the literature scanning, student compositions and various other scales used in researches, the items related to the attitude scale for war and peace were written. After specialist views, a practice was carried out with 303 secondary school students. After reliability analysis, attitude scale was finalized. In the qualitative side of the research, students? opinions were taken through direct interview.The quantitative part of the research was carried out with 3026 secondary education students. In this part the attitudes of students for war and peace were tried to be determined. The scale of war and peace is made up of 40 items. The data obtained were analysed with SPSS 15.0 package program. In order to evaluate the data obtained in the quantitative part of the research, t test and variance analysis methods were used.In the qualitative part of the research, 70 students studying in different types of schools were interviewed. In seven types of schools, 10 students participated in the interview. In order to learn the knowledge and attitudes of students regarding the issues of war and peace, a semi-structured interview scale was used in the qualitative part. The data obtained through interview scale were classified by a coding system. The interview scale and coding system were developed by Ilse Hakvoort. The consent to use this scale was taken from the researcher.Quantitative and qualitative results obtained in the research were put forward and evaluated. The qualitative and quantitative results of the research were given separately. It was tried to determine whether there was a significant difference depending on the independent variables in the quantitative part. In addition, the percentage rates of in which category the responses of the students for the questions in the interview were grouped were determined in the qualitative part. Some samples were given dealing with the answers they responded in the interview. In this part, the views of students regarding recent wars were also evaluated. Which wars the students were aware of in recent time was tried to be determined. Students think as the results of wars in recent time that there is a struggle of benefit over petroleum. In addition, student expressed that the reason why wars occur in the Middle East is that there is a lack of democracy there.Depending on the results of the researcher, some recommendations were given for the scientists for the researches that might be carried out in the future. Also, some recommendations were put forward for the teachers of history upon the evaluation of the results.Keywords: War and Peace, War and Peace Attitude Scale, Interview Scale, History Education