The Social Studies Teacher Candidates' Graphic Reading and Preparing Skills: A Practical Study

Abstract

Today, with the possibilities brought by technology, it is seen that the data needed in almost every area of life is presented by using various visual tools. One of these tools is graphics. Graphs are tools that are used effectively in interpreting the data presented to us and in the visualization of more than one data group that has a relationship. One of the most important objectives of the social studies course, which is created by the content obtained from different social science fields, is to help students learn to read and prepare tables, graphics, and diagrams. The case study design, one of the qualitative research designs, was used in this study. The research group of the study consists of 50 senior teacher candidates studying in the social studies teaching program in a state university in the 2021-22 academic year. In the study, the data were collected through an achievement test that included three graphic reading and two graphic preparation questions developed by the researchers. In addition, an interview form consisting of two questions was used in the study to determine the difficulties faced by the students while reading and preparing graphics. It has been determined that both female and male social studies teacher candidates in the study group can read graphics containing few data but cannot read relatively complex graphics containing many data groups and have difficulty showing two or more data groups using any graphics. It was seen that the graphic reading skills of male students were slightly better than female students, and the graphic drawing skills of female students were slightly better than male students. In addition, it was concluded in the study that, as revealed in previous studies, the graphic reading levels of the students were generally moderate, they could not compare the data with each other or from a theoretical point of view, and they could read mostly the graphics prepared at the primary level.