Preservice Social Studies Teachers’ Views of the Use of Quizlet in a Physical Geography Course

Abstract

This study aims to examine the views of preservice social studies teachers on the use of Quizlet in a physical geography course. The participants of the study consisted of 56 preservice social studies teachers who were secondyear students in the social studies education program of the educational faculty of a state university and were taking the "physical geography of Turkey" course. At the end of a 5-week-long application of Quizlet, the qualitative data were collected using a questionnaire consisting of open-ended questions that were designed by the researcher. Participants’ responses to the open-ended questions on the questionnaire were analyzed using qualitative descriptive analysis. Results showed that preservice social studies teachers found the use of Quizlet in the physical geography course as useful mostly because it was instructive and easy to use, allowed revising and permanence of knowledge, and the presentation of geography terms with visuals in Quizlet sets helped them to learn geography concepts. The most preferred modes among the categories in Quizlet sets by the participants were “flashcards”, and their “match” in the games category. The majority of the participants did not have any problems when using the Quizlet study sets, but concerning the modes, some students had problems with the device, and they had problems with the internet connection. Based on the results of this research, using Quizlet in teaching the physical geography course and for teaching geography concepts are recommended.

Keywords

• Quizlet
• geography teaching
• physical geography course
• preservice social studies teachers
• Quizlet, geography teaching, physical geography course, preservice social studies teachers