Effect of the use of multimedia on students performance: A case study of social studies class

The rapidly changing technological developments have affected education as it does every other fields of human endeavor. The number of technology applications used in education increases every day. One of these tools is multimedia. In the studies about the use of multimedia in education, it has been reached that multimedia increases students’ success, affects students’ attitudes in the positive way and makes lessons more enjoyable and understandable. In this study, multimedia tools were used in social studies to contribute to the field. The study aims to outline the effect of multimedia on the academic success of social studies students. Experimental design was used in the study with two sections (both 4th grade – Section I as the control group and Section II as the experimental group) used as the control and experimental study groups of this study. The sample of the study is 67 social studies 4th grade students in Kayseri, Turkey. For data collection, an achievement test which was generated with experts’ opinion and tried as pilot was used. The data from the achievement test was analyzed with SPSS program. At the end of the study, it has been concluded that multimedia technique increased the academic success of students in social studies lesson compared to the traditional classroom. Key words: Multimedia, computer aided education, social studies, technology usage.