Social Studies Instruction With Educational Music: Write, Compose, and Apply

Abstract

The present study aimed to assist pre-service social studies teachers in the production of song lyrics adequate for the curriculum, composition of songs that would be of interest for secondary school students to construct functional educational music in social studies courses and determine the impact of this music on academic achievements and learning processes of the students. In the present study, exploratory sequential design, a mixed research method, was employed. In the first stage, song lyrics were written by 55 pre-service teachers attending the education department in a public university in Malatya province, Turkey, and songs were composed with these lyrics by a music teacher, and two music department students. The second stage (application phase) was conducted with 48 secondary school students. In the final stage, the views on the use of educational songs in the classroom were obtained. The study data were analyzed with quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques. The study findings demonstrated that the songs created by pre-service teachers improved the achievements of secondary school students in the social studies course, supported learning by fun, provided better comprehension of the course topics, and were effective in maintaining the student motivation and attention.