Abstract:

Visual resources has a great importance in historical research and teaching. Visual resources makes historical knowledge, which is abstract by nature, more understandable for new generations by making it concrete at the same time help students develop creative thinking and imagination (Smirnova ve Romanov, 2007: 1). Helping students develop visual analysis skills is necessary not only in terms of comprehension and achievement levels, but also important for the development of lifelong learning skills. A person who is good in visual analysis can easily understand the diversity of actions, objects and symbols he/she witnesses in daily life and interpret them more correctly . The most important element in the development of visual analysis skills of students are the teachers. The proper usage of the visuals in history lessons by teachers will have a positive impact on students’ visual analysis and visual literacy skills. The aim of this research is to determine History and Social Studies teacher candidates’ level of visual analysis skills. An embedded single-case design was used in this qualitative case study. The senior students from two departments, History Education and Social Studies Education, at Atatürk University, Kazım Karabekir Education Faculty were set as study population for his research. Required data for this study were gathered by “visual analysis level worksheet” prepared by the researchers. The results show that while analyzing historical images the majority of teacher candidates had hard time seven at identification level tasks, unable to perform in-depth and detailed analysis, use short phrases and explanations, approach resources with an non-academic, emotional and biased perspective therefor their analysis skills are inadequate compared to their level of education

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