A Knowledge Literacy Model Proposal for Social Studies Education on the Basis of Social Sciences

Abstract

Human efforts to understand nature originate from a mental scheme that includes data, information, knowledge, and wisdom levels. An individual first perceives everything in nature as data, and this data collection process starts before birth and continues after birth. Throughout human history, individuals have created data sources by recording their perceptions, experiences, and observations about humans, other living creatures, nature, and the world. These data are processed in line with individuals’ needs and interests and transformed into meaningful information. Knowledge emerges when the connections between information become stronger and gain meaning. In this way, people create a growing wealth of knowledge about nature and the environment. The effort to understand and interpret nature involves not only the physical environment of humans but also the structure of societies, their cultures, economies, and histories. In this respect, social sciences and social studies are important tools to help us understand this broad perspective. Social sciences guide us in investigating social structures, cultural norms, economic systems, and political processes. Concerning social studies in which social sciences are simplified and presented together as a course in secondary schools, the data and information provided by social studies are of critical importance to understand how people live together and interact and how they have changed throughout history. Social studies reflects people's efforts to understand their social relations, social structures, and historical events and aims to provide skills in understanding and evaluating these issues, which enriches their levels of knowledge and wisdom.
It can be indicated that there is no common scheme or model for acquiring knowledge in social sciences. It is essential to structure knowledge in the social science fields included in the content of social studies. In this regard, the objective of the study is to develop a framework model regarding different types of knowledge that 7can improve students' knowledge literacy within the scope of teaching social studies as social sciences. The study was conducted with a grounded theory design, one of the qualitative research approaches. In the study, the literature on types of knowledge was reviewed within the scope of grounded theory design, and the types of knowledge used in social sciences were attempted to be determined by interviewing 25 academicians who were social science experts and social studies educators. An unstructured interview form developed by the researcher was used to collect data. An inductive analysis approach was adopted in the data analysis. The concept analysis (coding) method suitable for the study’s purpose was employed in the analysis of the data obtained. As a result of literature readings, knowledge literacy was defined, and as a result of the interviews with domain experts, types of knowledge that can be expressed as the core category used in social sciences were acquired. These types of knowledge can be listed as interpretation, foresight, strategy, concept, inference, and theory.