The effect of social studies teaching supported by folk songs on gifted students' self-regulation skills and retention of learning

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the effect of supporting distance social studies teaching with folk songs on students' self-regulation skills and retention of what was learned. The study group of the research consisted of a total of 35 students, 17 of whom were in the experimental group and 18 of whom were in the control group, who were studying in two different branches of the 4^th grade in a private school in Malatya and who received support education in Science and Art Centers (SAC) outside the school. Malatya province, one of the provinces that has been the source of Folk Songs, was preferred because it is the city where the researcher worked as a primary school teacher and researched Folk Songs. This the study, mixed methods of quantitative and qualitative character were used. Experimental design was used with qualitative research method and action research was used with qualitative research method. As a data collection tool, differentiated lesson plans were prepared by selecting folk songs related to the "Culture and Heritage" learning area in the Social Studies teaching program. These lesson plans were applied to the experimental group for 5 weeks. After the lesson topics were taught, the experimental group was administered a 25-question acquisition pre-test compiled from the skill-based 4th grade assessment and evaluation questions, the reliability and validity of which were conducted by the Ministry of National Education of Türkiye (MoNET) and implemented in all schools in the 2020-2021 academic year. In order to determine the retention of what was learned, a post-test application consisting of end-of-the-theme achievement questions was created 21 days after the unit was completely completed. The "7-Step Cycle of Self-Regulated Learning" model was used to measure the self-regulation skills of gifted students and the "Social Cognitive Self-Regulated Learning" model was used to understand the performance of students in the educational process. Paired Simple T test was used for data analysis. As a result of the data analysis, it was determined that supporting distance social studies teaching with folk songs had a positive effect on students' self-regulated learning skills and retention of what they learned.