PROBLEMS EXPERIENCED IN SECONDARY SCHOOL SOCIAL STUDIES CLASSES FROM THE VIEWPOINTS OF PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS AND SOLUTION RECOMMENDATIONS

Abstract

Until recently, the curricula taught in faculties of education in our country were prepared by the Council of Higher Education and applied as fixed programs in all universities. With the transformation and updates in the content of the curricula, faculties of education have been given the authority to add and remove a certain amount of course content. Despite the changes made, it is frequently mentioned in the related literature that various problems are experienced in social studies lessons taught especially in the classes between the 5th and 7th grades. It is considered important that prospective social studies teachers who take the teaching practice courses (I-II) express the problems and solution proposals. Because, thanks to these courses, pre-service teachers have the opportunity to observe and apply the knowledge and skills they have acquired at the undergraduate level. In this study, the opinions of prospective social studies teacher candidates about the problems experienced in the secondary school social studies lessons and their solution recommendations were determined with a focus on teachers, students, the textbook and the curriculum. The research was designed as a case study, one of the qualitative research methods, and the study group was selected through the criterion sampling method, one of the purposive sampling methods. In this context, the study group of the research consisted of prospective social studies teachers who studied in the 4th grade in the spring semester of the 2021-2022 academic year. The data were obtained through a semi-structured interview form and analysed by descriptive method. The findings were discussed within the related literature and various recommendations were made accordingly.