Activity-based Learning in Secondary School Geography Lessons in Turkey: A Study from Geography Teachers’ Perspective

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the type and frequency of in-and out-of-school activities implemented in secondary school geography lessons in Turkey. A questionnaire survey was prepared and distributed to 150 geography teachers who participated in an in-service education organized by the Ministry of National Education in 2009. Eighty-one teachers responded to the twenty-four questions, which were asked in the questionnaire survey. Frequency analyses were performed on the data with SPSS software. As found in the study, teachers implement many more in-school activities than out-of-school activities in their geography lessons. Twenty-one percent of the teachers who responded to the questionnaire did not conduct any out-ofschool activity in their lessons while 80% of them implemented an in-school activity at least once a week in an educational year. As the study revealed, geography teachers in Turkey started using new technologies in their lessons such as the Google Earth and GIS although some traditional methods including class discussion, asking and answering questions still dominate the classrooms. The study shows that activity-based learning has gained importance in secondary school geography lessons in Turkey in recent years. However, its success will depend on how much teachers will adapt themselves to the new developments and how much support they will get from schools, universities and the Ministry of National Education.