Abstract
Social Science and Science Teachers 'Views on Reasons for Using Aid Books
This study was carried out so as to reveal the reasons for the use of supplementary
books that secondary school Social Sciences teachers and Science teachers make their
students purchase in addition to the course books. Thus, a semi-structured interview
form developed by the researchers was employed. First, a semi-structured interview form
consisting of five open-ended questions was prepared. These questions were submitted
to the standpoints of two experts, and as a result of the information provided by the
experts, the number of the questions was decreased to four and corrections were made
regarding the scope of the other questions. The teachers were asked whether they use
supplementary books, on what they pay attention to while buying supplementary books,
and how the supplementary books help both the students and the teacher. A total of
12 branch teachers, 6 Social Sciences teachers and 6 Science teachers working in the
district schools in Ağrı, Turkey, voluntarily participated in the study. Basic qualitative
research method was used in the study. Descriptive, systematic and data analysis methods
were used for data analysis. Some of the results obtained from the findings of the study
are as follows: as a result of the research, both Social Sciences teachers and Science
teachers state that they use supplementary resource books. It was concluded that the
majority of teachers make their students purchase supplementary books for such reasons
as visual richness, excessive application, providing permanent learning with repetition of
the subject, emphasis on the subject matter in narration, and the use of understandable
language. It was also concluded that when Social Sciences teachers and Science teachers
make their students buy supplementary books, they pay attention to the suitability of these
books to the program of MoNE (Ministry of National Education), the presence of exercise
questions similar to the ones in the exams of MoNE, the number of the activities and
variety of the question types, the variety of information, the language of narration and
the quality of the questions.
Keywords
Social Sciences, Science, Course Books, Supplementary Books, Middle School.
