A solution proposal for reducing dependence on center in history teaching: Local history

In this research, it has been aimed to measure the effect of covering course through the activities based on local history resources in history teaching to the academic achievements and attitudes of the students towards the course. Control group design paired with pre and post test has been used in the research. The research has been carried out on secondary education 10th grade students by using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The data in the quantitative dimension of the research have been collected by the "Attitude Scale towards History Course" developed by the researcher and the "Academic Achievement Test" prepared on the determined achievements of the "The Longest Century (1800-1922)" unit in 10th grade history curriculum. In the qualitative dimension, the data have been obtained from the worksheets the experimental group students filled out during the activities and interviews with them held at the end of the exercises. The research has been performed with Izmir Bornova College Anatolian High School 10th grade students in the spring semester of 2011-2012 academic year. 10/C class has randomly been assigned as experimental and 10/B class as control group for the study, as a result of the implementation of the prepared data collection tools as pre-test, it has been revealed that both groups are equivalent to each other. The research has been done with 40 students in total including N=21 in experimental group and N=19 in control group. Courses have been covered through activities based on local history resources for a period of six weeks in experimental group and through traditional methods in the control group. Quantitative data obtained as a result of the application of data collection tools that consist of Academic Achievement Test and Attitude Scale towards History Course have been analyzed through SPSS program. In the analysis of quantitative data, the two-factor ANOVA test for repeated measures on one factor, t-test for dependent and independent groups and Mann-Whitney U test for independent groups have been used. Document analysis has been used in analysis of the worksheets and content analysis methods have been used for the analysis of the interview data obtained from experimental group students. In the research, the courses covered through the activities based on local history resources have been seen to create a significant difference in the academic achievements and attitudes of the students towards History course than the traditional method. Accordingly, it has been concluded that courses covered with the activities based on local history resources increase students' academic achievements and develop the attitudes of them towards the course positively. In addition, it has been seen from the analysis of the worksheets the students filled out during the activities that the students use some of the sub-skills effectively that are present in historical thinking skills. Interviews held with experimental group students after the application have shown that the students developed positive attitude towards the local history activities in the course. Moreover, in this research besides suggestions which had been provided, based on the results obtained and the impressions of the researcher, to Ministry of Education, teachers, teacher training institutions to generalize the use of local history in history courses, some suggestions for the researchers who want to study on this subject had been presented. Key Words: History Education, the Teaching of History, Local History, Local History Resources, Academic Achievement, Attitude towards History Course, Historical Thinking