Opinions of Social Studies Teachers Regarding the 4+4+4 Educational System

Abstract

When the changes in the educational system of this country during the recent years are considered, it is observed that the most fundamental change has been the transition to the non-continuous compulsory education system under the title 4+4+4. Success of the changes made in the educational systems is closely related to various matters, such as correct understanding and application of the mentioned change by teachers, informing of them about the made change and their participation in decision making processes about the change. In this context, the purpose of this research is to determine the opinions of Social Studies teachers serving in state schools connected to the Ministry of National Education regarding 4+4+4 education system. Based on this purpose, opinions of Social Studies teachers about materialization of 4+4+4 education system, and problems encountered during implementation by these teachers and their solution proposals regarding the problems were attempted to be determined by a study group made of 198 Social Studies teachers.
In the research, a likert type measuring tool was used made of 21 articles that were prepared by the researcher as a data collection tool and whose validity and reliability study was made. Furthermore, in order to determine the problems of Social Studies teachers in the implementation of 4+4+4 and their solution proposals, content analysis was made on data gathered by semi structured, open ended questions prepared by the researcher. It was observed that Social Study teachers featured problems including the intensity of educational programs, infrastructure deficiency, and politicizing of teacher staffing and education.