THE EFFECTS OF USING EDUCATIONAL COMICS ON STUDENTS’ COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE LEARNING IN SOCIAL STUDIES COURSE IN DISTANCE EDUCATION

The aim of this study is to reveal the effects of using educational comics on students’ academic

achievements, democratic attitudes, knowledge retention and students’ experiences about the

teaching materials in the 6th grade social studies course “Participating in Administration”

learning area. The research was carried out with mixed methods research and embedded design

was used in the study. Mixed methods is a research approach whereby researchers collect both

quantitative and qualitative data within the same study to understand research problems and

integrate two data sets. Using the advantages of combining these two data sets, researchers draw

conclusion on the strengths of these methods. Mixed methods research is used in the

behavioural, health, and social sciences. The basic assumption of this approach is that it is more

advantageous for the researcher to combine statistical trends (quantitative data) with personal

experiences (qualitative data) than to use either of these methods alone to better understand the

research problem. In an embedded design, both qualitative and quantitative data are collected

at the same time, but one type of data, either qualitative or quantitative, is secondary to the

other. Considering the findings obtained as a result of the analyses, it was found that there was

a significant difference between the mean scores of experimental group students taught with

educational comics and control group students in terms of academic achievement, democratic

attitudes, and knowledge retention. According to the findings obtained from the interviews, it

was revealed that students were pleased with the use of educational comics in online

environments via distant learning and they evaluated these teaching materials as informative,

entertaining, and attention grabbing. It was concluded that educational comics used in social

studies course in distant education had positive effects on students’ academic achievements,

democratic attitudes, and knowledge retention and the students found these teaching materials

used in distant learning effective and positive.