Investigation of social studies courses held by historical empathy activities according to student products and views

The aim of this research is to prepare activities for gaining historical empathy skills in 7th grade social studies course and to implement these activities and examine the effectiveness of these activities together with the students' opinions. Two basic problems of the research can be are how the level of showing the characteristics of historical empathy according to students' products/activities and how the students' views towards social studies courses based on historical empathy. In this action research, the evaluation was based on descriptive analysis. The action research process continued with two main problems and sub-problems related to the research. In this respect, the evaluation was conducted by the practitioner in the activities mostly formed by using primary sources considering the historical empathy characteristics. The study group consisted of 17 middle school students (8 girls and 9 boys). Five achievements and ten activities intended for the unit "Economical and Social Life" were extended to the action research process. In addition, the efficiency of the activities applied in the research process in revealing the historical empathy skills has been expressed with the students' views. As a result, when the students' responses in the activities were taken into consideration, it was seen that historical empathy features reached the first, second, third and fourth level of characteristics. However, it was concluded that students' level of reaching the fifth and sixth levels was low. It was also concluded that the students had a positive attitude towards the implementation of historical empathy activities. Key Words: Historical Empathy, Social Studies, Empathy Activities, Student Products, Student Opinions.