Baku, Azerbaijan | 259 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL of ACADEMIC RESEARCH Vol. 6. No. 2. March, 2014 T. Kafadar, B. Tay. Learning strategies and learning styles used by students in social studies. International Journal of Academic Research Part B; 2014; 6(2), 259-267. DOI: 10.7813/2075-4124.2014/6-2/B.39 Library of Congress Classification: L7-991 LEARNING STRATEGIES AND LEARNING STYLES USED BY STUDENTS IN SOCIAL STUDIES * Tugba Kafadar 1 , Bayram Tay 2 1 Marmara University, Institute of Education Sciences, Istanbul 2 Ahi Evran University, Faculty of Education, Kirsehir (TURKEY) E-mails: tugbakafadar@gmail.com, bayramtay@gmail.com DOI: 10.7813/2075-4124.2014/6-2/B.39 Received: 28 Sept, 2013 Accepted: 15 Mar, 2014 ABSTRACT It can be important to be known students’ learning features to increase efficiency of learning process in social studies lesson that aims educating efficient citizens. Therefore, in this study the learning strategies used by students, their learning styles and whether or not their learning strategies are changing according to their learning styles are researched. The data in this study, which is a cross sectional survey, were collected through the learning strategies developed by Tay (2002) on the basis of the classification of learning strategies performed by Gagne and Dricscoll (1988) and Kolb learning style inventory III which was adopted into Turkish by Evin Gencel (2006). As a result of the research it was identified that while students mostly use affective strategies they use coding and monitoring strategies at very least, they have mainly decomposition style and this style is followed by arrangement, assimilation and alteration styles. Furthermore, it have been recognized that students’ learning strategies are changing according to learning styles they have. It is concluded that in all learning strategies the students who have decomposition learning style use strategy more in significant level than those who have assimilation style. Key words: Social Studies, Learning Strategies, Learning Styles 1. INTRODUCTION Social studies is a scope of science which aims the citizen education and was included into curriculum for elementary schools’ 4th and 7th classes in Turkey while it started for all classes from preschool education to 12th class in USA in the late nineteenth century (Ozturk, Yigit & Karaduman, 2012).. In this lesson, it is needed to increase efficiency of learning process to educate active citizens. Individual differences should be taken into consideration to increase effectiveness of the learning process. In this respect each person in learning process is different from each other in way of their characteristics. Some of these differences can have some variances such as learning strategies, learning styles, intelligence fields and study habits. Learning strategies are the total effort that the students need to process, understand and adopt the information introduced in learning-teaching processes or in their individual preparation (Tay, 2013). In other words learning strategies can be described as the whole of the performed activities of learner to give meaning to information in cognitive and affective processes (Kafadar, 2013a). As it is understood from definitions, learning strategies include more than one activity. Different classifications of these activities are seen (Kirby, 1984 cited in Hewitt, 2008; Weinstein & Mayer, 1986; Mayer, 1988; Hartley, 1998; Gagne & Driscoll, 1988; O’ Malley, Russo, Chamot & Stewner-Manzares, 1988; O’Malley & Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1990; Ozturk, 1995; Riding & Rayner, 1998; Warr & Downing). Learning strategies that underline this study are classified into two categories as cognitive and affective by Gagne & Driscoll (1988). Cognitive strategies are separated into five sub-groups as; attention strategy, storage strategies in short time memory, coding strategies, restoration strategies and monitoring strategies. Affective strategies are collected under four subtitle that to enable to continue attention, assist to increase convenience, provide to increase confidence and enable satisfaction. Attention strategy: Self learning student can adopt a few attention strategies depending on targeted learning (Gagne & Driscoll, 1988). Highlighting and taking note are among the attention strategies. Storage strategies in short time memory: According to Flavell (1970) and Flavell & Wellman (1977) for reason of limitedness capacity of short time memory and limitedness of information duration, students can adopt restoration and grouping strategies to decrease this limitedness (cited in Gagne &Driscoll, 1988). * This article is produced from Tugba Kafadar's master thesis which was accepted at Ahi Evran University, Institute of Social Sciences in June 2013 and supervised by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bayram Tay.