Abstract:

The graphic organizers are accepted as one of the vital learning strategies that can be used in order to reveal clearly relationships between concepts and cause-and-effect relationships. The graphic organizers both contribute to meaningful learning by concreting abstract topics and also facilitate keeping knowledge that are learned on mind visually. This study aims to examine effect of graphic organizer use in social studies on academic achievement of secondary school students. For this purpose, control group pattern with pretest-posttest design was used in the study. The study was conducted in the 2018-2019 academic year with the participation of 56 students (29 experimental groups, 27 control groups) in Ankara province. While "Production, Distribution and Consumption" learning field which is the 5th grade topic was handled with the graphic organizer for the experimental group students, the same learning topic was focused with the practices of the social studies teacher prior to the study in the scope of the study for the control group. As a result of the analysis of the data obtained, the academic achievements of the experimental group students with the graphic organizer courses were higher than those of the control group students. Suggestions were made in light of the findings.

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