High School Students’ Views and Attitudes towards Geography Courses in Turkey

Abstract

Geography, which is very important in understanding the place we live on, should be an area of interest for students rather than just a course. Geography education is an important subject in Turkey that has been offered in various institutions from pre-school to post-graduate education. The first geography course curriculum began to be implemented in 1924 in the history of the Republic. Geography course curricula (GCC), as in other courses, have also been changed since 1924.With the amendment of 2005, the GCC has reached a very different structure than the previous curricula and has entered into the application with many changes and innovations. The Geography Curriculum had new revisions and innovations in 2018 as well. Despite these changes, the curriculum’s structure has not been changed. Students centered instruction, construvtivist approach, and active learning strategies were the heart of the curriculum. The aim of this study was to determine the views of high school students studying in Duzce province about in-class learning-teaching activities, material use in geography courses and their attitudes towards geography courses based on these, and to examine this subject in terms of various variables (gender of student, gender of the geography teacher, whether the course is liked, school location, class level and school type). Survey model was used in this study. For this purpose, a scale was developed for the study. A 25-item “learning process in geography course, material use and student attitude” scale consisting of three factors including developed. The study group consists of 568 students studying in various high schools in Duzce during the 2018-2019 academic year. Statistical analyzes were performed using SPSS 22.0 (Statistical Package for Social Science for Personal Computers) software. The results indicated that even though the 2018 revised curriculum implemented active learning, constructivist approach, and student centered program, teachers utilize traditional instructional methods according to students. Teachers mainly use textbooks and they hardly use instructional materials. Results also indicated that teachers only use traditional assessment methods. The use of student portfolios, group work, and student projects hardly exist in classrooms.