Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of using memoirs in History class on students' attitudes and academic achievement. Within the scope of this research, firstly, the memories of the 8th Grade History course about the War of Independence period were examined and memoirs-based course activities were prepared by quoting from the sections appropriate to the relevant achievements. A total of 37 memoirs by different authors deemed appropriate by the researcher were used. These quotes were used while preparing the activities to be used in practice. Some reading strategies and graphic organizers were used to help the study group students better understand and analyze the memoir texts. This research was conducted with 8th grade students in the History course, using the quantitative research method as a quasi-experimental research. Achievement test and attitude scales were applied as a pre-test to a total of 69 students in the experimental and control groups, whose academic achievement and attitude scores were close to each other. During the application, after the activities prepared using memoirs were applied to the experimental group students, the achievement test and the History lesson attitude scale were applied as posttest to both groups. According to the results of the findings, the students in the experimental group were academically more successful than the control group. Although the attitudes of the experimental group students towards the History course and the unit were lower than the control group before the application, the attitudes of the experimental group students increased as a result of the application. This revealed that the application improved student attitudes. In the light of the results obtained from the research, it can be said that memoirs are an appropriate teaching material to be used in History lessons.

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