ÖZEL DERSHANELER İLE COĞRAFYA ÖĞRETİMİ İLİŞKİSİNİN DEĞERLENDİRİLMESİ: BETİMSEL BİR YAKLAŞIM

Made compulsory by the education system implemented in Turkey, centralized exams and private courses that were established as an ‘extra way station’ to be successful in these exams have been under dispute in both political and social arenas for a long time. With the increasing schooling rate each year, the number of students desiring to attend higher education is also increasing. Due to many reasons such as lack of parallelism between the curriculums of schools and exams, crowded classrooms, lack of opportunities to find extra study time under the guidance of teachers and lack of possibilities for tutoring, private courses are preferred by many students (Arabacı and Namlı, 2014). At that point, private courses assume the role of supporting inadequate education given at schools and thus, preferred by students and families to get ready for centralized exams. Within the existing education system, for students to continue their education at a higher level of schooling, they need to be successful in each question asked in centralized exams; due to fierce competition, each question is of great importance. This in particular increases the importance of private courses. A political decision was taken to close down private courses or turn them into private schools; yet, students still have to take centralized exams because of the existing demand and supply gap. This means that the fierce competition among students will continue to find a place in better schools or educational institutions. One of the subject areas for which students are in search of help in private courses for the university entrance exam is geography. Though there is a variety in the number of geography questions asked in each university entrance exam centrally administered by Student Selection and Placement Center (SSPC), answering each of these questions is of great importance for students. In the current study, the purpose is to investigate the correlations between the students’ opinions about geography teaching in private courses and their gender, grade level, duration of attending the private course, type of attended/graduated school, family income level and father and mother’s educational status.Method The present study is a descriptive study designed in the survey model based on a measurement scale developed by the researchers. The study group of the current research consists of 1499 students (high school 11th, 12th graders and graduates) attending four high schools and five private courses in the city of Ankara. The entire study group is comprised of students attending a private course and taking geography courses. The data were collected through “Private Course-Geography Teaching Correlation Scale (PCGTCS)” developed by the researchers. Piloting of the study was conducted with 312 students attending three private courses in the city of Ankara in 2013-2014 school years. In order to test the construct validity of the scale, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was conducted and Principal Components Analysis was capitalized on. As a result, three-factor construct consisting of 19 items explaining 55.005% of the total variance was obtained. The first dimension of the scale eliciting the opinions about private courses was named as the address of success; the second dimension eliciting the opinions about the necessity of geography teaching in private courses was named as complementary role of private courses and the third dimension eliciting the opinions about the geography teaching at school was named as deficiets of curriculum and application. The reliability of the scale was calculated with Cronbach Alpha coefficient. Cronbach Alpha coefficient was found to be .838 for the first factor, .821 for the second factor and .657 for the third factor. For the whole scale, Cronbach Alpha coefficient was found to be .890. Prior to the analysis of the data, in order to test whether the data have the characteristic of normal distribution, Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk Tests were run. As both of the tests revealed that the data do not display normal distribution, in the analysis of the students’ opinions about the relationship between private courses and geography in relation to the variables, Mann Whitney-U test and Kruskal Wallis-H test were used. Significance level was set to be 0.05 in the analysis of the difference between the means of groups. Findings The analyses revealed that the students’ opinions about the relationship between private course and geography teaching vary significantly depending on gender, grade level, duration of attending a private course, type of attended/graduated school and mother and father’s educational status. The findings of the study can be summarized as follows:  The female students agree more with the idea that private courses are the address of success than the male students. Çayır (2014) also reported a significant difference in favor of the female students.  The 11th and 12th graders agree more with the idea that private courses are the address of success than the graduated students and with increasing grade level, students’ positive perception of private courses’ contribution to their success decreases.  The 11th and 12th graders agree more with the idea that private courses assume a role of complementing the geography education at school and that geography instruction at school is inadequate in terms of curriculum and application than the graduated students.  With increasing grade level, the level of agreement with the complementary role of private courses and inadequacy of school curriculum in terms of geography instruction decreases. In this regard, it can be argued that private courses are viewed as institutions not only preparing students for exams, but also complementing the instruction given at school.  With the increasing duration of attending private courses, the students more see private courses as the address of success and find school geography curriculum more inadequate and their level of agreement with the complementary role of private courses increases.  The students’ opinions about the correlation between private courses and geography teaching do not significantly vary depending on their family income.  The students of Social Sciences and Anatolian High Schools agree more with the idea that private courses are the address of success than the students of the other high schools. The lowest level of agreement belongs to Vocational High School students. This may be because high majority of the vocational high school students (72%) participating are graduate students.  The students of Social Sciences High School agree more with the idea that private courses assume a role of complementing the geography education at school and that geography instruction at school is inadequate in terms of curriculum and application than the students of the other high schools. This seems to be a structural problem and indicates that there are some problems experienced in the current secondary and higher education geography instruction programs, that students cannot actively participate in the course and learn through rote learning-based geography instruction isolated from real life; thus, the desired outcomes cannot be achieved (Özgen, 2009).  The Science High School students’ level of agreement with the complementary role of private courses is low. Vocational High School students agree less with the inadequacy of geography curriculum and instruction at school than the students of the other high schools.  The students whose mothers are literate and fathers are illiterate view private courses as the address of success and agree more with the idea that school geography curriculum is inadequate and geography instruction given by private courses is necessary than the others. Results The study shows that private courses are viewed to be the address of success to a great extent. Eleventh and twelfth graders and students whose duration of attending private courses is longer see private courses more as the address of success and display greater agreement with their complementary role and inadequacy of school geography programs and this may indicate the importance of private courses forstudents. This finding is supported by Arabacı and Namlı (2014) reporting that 85% of students do not want private courses to close. Thus, as a result of closure or transformation of private courses, students seeing them as an important contributor to their success now feel concerned and uncertain. In order to deal with the perceived negative results of the closure of private courses, high school programs and education systems must be renewed. Structural arrangements should be performed in the education system to meet the needs of individuals for a better life and future. Equal and quality education is the most basic right of individuals and social policies aiming to provide such education for every individual should be developed (Özgen, Köşker and Yalçın, 2014). In light of all these requirements, reasons behind the emergence of private courses need to be discussed at political level, analyzed based on socio-economic needs and possible solutions should be suggested. In this regard, deficiencies in school programs directing students to private courses should be eliminated and necessary structural changes should be made to minimize the demand for private courses (development of vocational guidance, restructuring of secondary education paying greater attention to vocational education, effective implementation of quality control mechanisms at schools etc).