Seventh Grade Students' Conceptual Understanding about Citizenship: Does a Constructivist Social Studies Program Make a Difference?

Many studies have shown that students at different age levels come into classrooms with a variety of alternative conceptions. Commonly held alternative conceptions are the main source of the difficulties that students and teachers face in learning and teaching. The aim of this study was to compare the conceptual understanding of students who were exposed to previous traditional/behaviorist and the current constructivist social studies programs. Descriptive and quasi-experimental research designs were used together in this study. The participants of this study consisted of 606 seventh-grade students in 15 middle schools located in 5 different districts in Ankara. Data collected through administrating a three-tier multiple choice concept test as a post and pre-test was analyzed by using different statistical techniques, such as percentage-frequency tables, independent samples t-test, and chi-square. There was a significant difference between the conceptual understanding of students who were exposed to the previous and the current program after they were taught about the common human rights, democracy and citizenship concepts. This difference was in favor of the current program.