A Qualitative Study on the Class Teachers’ Justification of Using Concept Maps

The a im o f t he s tudy i s t o f ind out that in which courses and for what purposes concept maps are used by class teachers who work in elementary school. in accordance with this purpose, “semi-structured interview has been made with in total of 101 class teachers working in ten different schools depending on the city of isparta in the academic year 2013-2014. in this study, one of the qualitative research methods, phenomenological approach is used and the reliability of research is calculated by using miles and huberman formula (reliability= consensus/ consensus+ dissidence). data are analyzed using content analysis of qualitative research methods. according to the findings obtained, class teachers have used concept maps for 11 different purposes and especially in social science lessons. moreover; when the justification of using concept maps is considered, it can be seen that teachers use concept maps for providing topics as a whole and making meaningful trainings for students. with this study, it is concluded that concept maps have an important place in the teaching-learning process.