Preservice Social Studies Teachers’ Opinions Regarding History Education

Abstract

In Turkey, preservice social studies teachers take history education courses such as Revolution History and Kemalism I-II, Ancient History and Civilization, Pre-Islamic Turkish History and Culture, History of Turkish Education, History of Medieval Age, Ottoman History and Civilization I-II, New and Contemporary History, Contemporary World History, and History of Turkish Republic I-II during their undergraduate education. The purpose of this study was to reveal preservice social studies teachers’ opinions regarding how these courses were taught. Within this scope, their perceptions of how these courses were taught and their opinions regarding how history courses should be taught were tried to be determined. The participants of this study involved 125 third and fourth-year undergraduates studying social studies education of a faculty of education at a state university. One of the qualitative research designs, phenomenology was used in this study. The data were collected using a semi-structured interview form. During the interviews, the participants were asked to respond three questions: “What is instruction?”, “How are history courses taught in your department?”, and “how should the history courses be taught?” The data were analyzed using descriptive analysis technique. Direct quotations were used and the emerging themes were presented under some categories in Findings section.