An Investigation of Secondary School Seventh Grade Students’ Implicit and Explicit Knowledge about the Concept of Citizen

Abstract

The conceptual understanding related to being a citizen involves not only the explicit knowledge acquired through explicit instruction and course books but also the implicit, experiential knowledge acquired in socio-cultural and political environments. Explicit and implicit conceptual knowledge we have acquired about being a citizen affects our values, attitudes and behaviours we demonstrate as citizens. The purpose of this study is to investigate secondary school seventh grade students’ implicit and explicit knowledge about the concept of citizen. The study adopted a convergent parallel mixed method. 27 students were chosen using typical case sampling for the identification of implicit knowledge, and 124 students were chosen using simple random sampling method for the identification of explicit knowledge. Data were collected from secondary school seventh grade students who were enrolled in three state schools, who had their parents’ consent and who volunteered to participate in the study. Implicit knowledge about the concept of citizen was identified using the repertory grid technique, and explicit knowledge was identified using the “Explicit Knowledge Test” about the concept of citizen including seven open-ended questions. Qualitative data obtained for implicit knowledge were analyzed using content analysis methods and Idiogrid 2.4 program. Students’ answers given in the explicit knowledge test were analyzed using a holistic rubric. Analysis of the data included the use of frequencies, percentages, arithmetic means, standard deviation, t-test, and one-way ANOVA.

An analysis of implicit knowledge about the concept of citizen showed that the students interpreted the concept of citizen mostly as “being a good person” and least as “an individual who has rights”. According to the students’ eigenvalue (Euclidean distance coefficient) that reflected the difference between the “Me as a citizen” and “What kind of citizen do I want to be”, “Me as a citizen compared to other people in my environment”, “What kind of a citizen do I have to be? central elements showed that majority of the students had high eigenvalues (self perceptions) as citizens. Majority of the students were found to have “first level-insufficient” explicit knowledge about the concept of citizen; a small number of students had “second level-partially sufficient” knowledge; and there were no students who had “third level-mostly sufficient” and “fourth level-sufficient”. Students’ explicit knowledge test scores displayed significant differences according to mother’s education level, having friends with different cultural characteristics, and the languages spoken at home variables; no significant differences were determined according to gender, the location of the school, father’s education level, and mother language variables.