Abstract:

This research intends to study the effects of cliffhanger technique designed with band caricatures on gifted students in social studies lesson and it uses both qualitative and quantitative research techniques. Pretest and posttest control group design was used in the quantitative part of the research. The experimental group involved 13 gifted students and the control group involved 32 students who have normal developmental characteristics. In the qualitative part, the students’ ability to complete the cliffhanger events correctly and to understand the plot of events are scrutinized in detail with content analysis. The data resource of the research consists of social studies achievement test and band caricatures evaluation form. The research is carried out on the basis of “Culture and Heritage” unit of social studies lesson for 5th grades. The quantitative data were analyzed on SPSS 22 statistical program and assessed with Shapiro-Wilk, Independent Samples t test, Mann-Whitney test and Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test. The qualitative data were analyzed on MAXQDA 12 program. Each document of the students who completed the incomplete events in band caricatures was transcripted and computerized, and then the documents for each achievement was analyzed with MAXQDA 12 in accordance with the content analysis. The research revealed that the use of cliffhanger technique with band caricatures positively increased the academical achievements of both gifted students and students with normal development. However, the cliffhanger technique designed with band caricatures did not cause a significant increase in the academical achievements of the gifted students nor the students with normal development. When the students with normal development and gifted students were compared with regards to completing the example events correctly which were designed with band caricatures and understanding the plot, it was seen that the gifted students were better at both completing the events correctly and understanding the plot.

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