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Investigation into Turkish Elementary School Students’ Misconceptions about Historical Concepts, An Action Research
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Anachronism refers to an error on the date and period of an event or phenomenon. This error may be on factual information or explanations as well as on the concepts, points of view and mindsets. Three types of anachronism are reported: anachronism of facts, anachronism of language, anachronism of perspective. The anachronism of language and perspective refers to the usage of current concepts and perspectives to explain and elucidate the historical events and facts. This error is usually an outcome of presentism. Presentism is the reflection of the today’s needs, problems and perspectives on the history writing . This is actually an inherent problem that cannot be avoided in history writing. However, this also leads to grave anachronism problems.
Anachronistic faults are frequent in not only history writing but also in preliminary and elementary school history teaching. A recent practice in social studies and history textbooks in Turkey requires further attention to this issue. Fictional texts created by the textbook writers are used in the textbooks to narrate the historical events and incidents, with the people of the time being the narrators. This article analyzes these texts in terms of anachronism errors. The major goal of the study is to investigate as to whether the writers attribute their personal views, the current notions or perspectives to the historical persons and whether they properly present the past perspectives.
The study carries out a research on four textbooks based on a qualitative content analysis. The research findings reveal that the writers of the textbooks do not display a satisfactory level of awareness with respect to presenting properly the perspectives, the viewpoints and approaches dominant of the time they are narrating. Attribution of current interpretations and facts to the past event leads to a number of flaws and errors in the fictional texts at the books. It is particularly observed that significant factual and interpretative errors have emerged in the explanation of the past events, use of the notions and changes in the perception of time and space.
The new generation of science museums is characterized by exhibits that allow the visitors to experiment freely with natural phenomena. This setting provides a unique type of research laboratory for studying how people learn. Using examples from our work with children at the site of exhibits on light and vision, we illustrate the preconceptions the children bring to the situation and how these notions shape their interpretation of the phenomena they manipulate and observe. Furthermore, we show how a conceptual analysis of the exhibit, when tied to the visitors’ interpretations, can be used to modify the exhibit in ways that enhance the user's understanding of the science involved. The study of learning in science museums is a field in its infancy. In this article we indicate its potential as well as some problems and questions it can fruitfully address.
and mathematics education. But, the same is not the case for the researches in social studies education. So, there is a need to fill the gap in the social studies literature. In this study, teaching methods and techniques that take into account student learning styles were used in social studies teaching in order to see whether they were effective in terms of reducing students’ misconceptions in the subject. Quantitative research methods were used to gather and analyze data for the study. Learning Styles Inventory and Misconceptions Test were implemented in the experiment and control groups. The analysis of the research data via SPSS computer program indicated that making use of teaching methods and activities that address learning styles did decreased students’ misconceptions in social studies. But, there was no noteworthy decrease in the control group’s post test misconceptions scores. The decrease in the experiment group’s misconceptions was not caused by demographic variables such as student age, gender, parents’ levels of education and occupations. Research results have shown that the use of learning styles in social studies teaching decreased students’ misconceptions and positively offected their learning levels positively
This article presents a theory of concept learning and development and a design for teaching concepts. It gives an overview of 30 years of programmatic research that eventuated in the initial formulation of the theory and the design and in subsequent refinements. The last refinement is presented in this article. The principles of learning incorporated in the theory are based on classroom experiments that identified the variables that facilitate concept learning at each of four successively higher levels of understanding: concrete, identity, classificatory, and formal. The development aspect of the theory indicates that individuals progress from one level to the next as they become capable of carrying out various mental processes. Both normative conceptual development during the school years, grades 1 to 12, and individual differences in the rate of development are identified. Principles for teaching concepts that take into account the learning and development aspects of the theory follow. The article closes with an indication of the powerful effects of focused concept instruction, preschool through college.