Experiences of prospective social studies teachers in project-based values education

Abstract

This study, aiming to reveal the experiences of prospective social studies teachers on project-based values education, was carried out in phenomenological design, which is one of the qualitative research designs. The study group consisted of 37 second-year students who received values education as an elective course in the social studies teaching department of a public university and who carried out projects for the values that they determined within the scope of the course. To create a project, the prospective teachers chose values such as equality, responsibility, sensitivity (cultural heritage), helpfulness, attaching importance to being healthy, patriotism, and savings. They implemented their projects on these values to the groups that they found appropriate. At the end of the process, a semi-structured interview form was used as data collection tool to reveal the participants' experiences of project-based values teaching. Descriptive analysis and content analysis were used to analyze the study data. As a result of the study, we concluded that the participants selected the values for their projects for reasons such as “raising awareness on the related values, embodying abstract values, eliminating prejudices, emphasizing the importance of cooperation in society”. Project-based values education was observed to provide the participants with many advantages such as “provision of experience both for values education and the teaching profession, project planning and conduction, improving communication skills, developing a sense of spirituality.”