Life long learning perception through historical tv series (The case of Bartın province)

The purpose of this research is to evaluate secondary and high school students' life long learning through historical TV series. Convergent parallel design which is one of the sub designs of mixed method is used as the research method and the quantitative and qualitative parts of the research are conducted concurrently. In the quantitative part, survey design is used and a scale developed for the research by the researcher is conducted. The population of the research includes 8th and 12th grade students of secondary and high scools in Bartın province and the sampling of the research consists of 1049 students who are enrolled in 8th and 12th grades in 2015-2016 academic years. The data is collected by personal information form, tv watching frequency form and "The scale of Lifelong Learning through Historical TV series" which are developed by the researcher. SPSS-22.0 package programme is used to analyze the collected data. Descriptive statistics are used to identify the scores of the students' lifelong learning through Historical TV series, Mann Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis H test are used to determine whether these scores have a significant difference,. With the result that there is a significant difference when the comparisons are done, the source of the difference is identified by using MannWhitney U test and Bonferroni correction. In the qualitative part of the research, phenomenology design is used. 22 students are chosen using criteria sampling who watch historical TV series that serve the purpose of the research from a secondary school and a high school which are selected through easily accessible sampling. Afterwards, Content analysis is done with the data collected through a semi-structured interview form that is developd by the researcher. The students' opinions are taken with the structured interview form and the content analysis is done with NVIVO 11Plus program. The outcomes of the research are: - The lifelong learning status of the 8th and 12th grade students of the secondary education through historical TV series is moderate (x2=2,88). It can be said that the students are eager to acquire historical knowledge through historical TV series so as to develop themselves Besides, the historical thinking which is an important dimension of lifelong learning through historical TV series and the historical awareness which is the indicator of it come into being in students minds. - According to the sub-dimensions of The Scale of Lifelong Learning through Historical TV Series, the students' lifelong learnings through historical TV series are moderate in the dimensions of historical knowledge (x2=3,20), historical awareness (x2=2,93), historical thinking (x2=2,88) and learning how to learn (x2=2,60). - In lifelong learning through historical TV series, there are significant differences in favour of the males between gender, in favour of the secondary schools between the school types, in favour of the two-year graduates between mothers' educational level, in favour of the ones who watch TV for 2-3 hours a day, in favour of the students watching historical TV series, in favour of the ones watching two or three historical TV series, in favour of the ones watching "Diriliş Ertuğrul". There is no significant difference between class, fathers' educational level, mothers' occupations and fathers' occupations. - According to qualitative results, it is found that historical TV series arouse interest in students and students have knowledge about the historical places mentioned in them. Students learn how to learn in a sense by searching about the historical characters and events which are previously unknown to them. Flow of events help students understand the historical events in a chronogical order. By acquaring historical knowledge, students can make sense of what they learn and share them with others. In this regard, students can both transfer the new knowledge and skills they acquire from the historical TV series into their own lives and make a contribution to spread them to the others. Thus, their lifelong learning enriches. As a conclusion, because of the fact that TV programmes have an important role in informal learning, it is suggested that TV series should be televized with this conscious and the messages they are supposed to give should be re-organized. Key Words: Life long learning, mass media, television, historical TV series,history, perception