Ortaokul Öğrencilerinin Fen Bilimleri Dersine, Bilime, Fen Bilimleri Öğretmenine ve Bilim İnsanına Yönelik Metaforik Algıları

Abstract

Günümüz toplumunda bireylerin, bilgiye ulaşma yollarını bilen ve en doğru bilgiye ulaşan, ulaştığı bilgiyi analiz edebilen, bilim ve teknolojideki yeni gelişmeleri takip ederek teknolojiyi günlük yaşamında kullanabilen bireyler olarak yetişmeleri beklenmektedir. Bireylerin bu özellikleri kazanmaları için eğitim programlarında; öğrencilerin bilimsel düşünme yetilerinin gelişmesine fırsat tanıyan ve fen okuryazarı olmalarını sağlamaya yönelik, düzenlemeler yapılmaktadır. Fen bilimleri eğitiminin amaçları incelendiğinde, yapılan bilimsel çalışmalara ve bilime yönelik olumsuz düşüncelerin yok edilmesine, bilimin gelişen, değişen ve kendini yenileyen yapısı hakkında bireylerde olumlu tutum geliştirmeye önem verildiği görülmektedir. Bilim ve bilime katkı sağlayan her durum için olumlu duygular geliştirilmeye çalışılmalıdır. Bu bağlamda ortaokulda eğitim gören öğrencilerin bilim insanına yönelik tutumlarının ve imajlarının aldıkları eğitim süresince değişiminin ve durumunun belirlenmesi önem arz etmektedir. Bu çalışmanın amacı Orta Okul düzeyinde öğrenim gören 5.,6.,7. ve 8. sınıf öğrencilerinin Fen Bilimleri Dersine, Bilime, Fen Bilimleri Öğretmenine ve Bilim İnsanına yönelik zihinsel imgelerini metaforlar aracılığı ile ortaya çıkartmaktır. Çalışmada nitel araştırma tekniklerinden yararlanılarak olgu bilim deseni kullanılmıştır. Araştırma, İzmir ilinden tesadüfi örnekleme yöntemine göre seçilen okulların, 5.,6.,7. ve 8. sınıflarda öğrenim gören 127 kız ve 118 erkek toplam 245 öğrenci ile gerçekleştirilmiştir. Bu çalışma sonucunda elde edilen veriler içerik analizi tekniği ile analiz edilerek yorumlanmıştır. Çalışmaya katılan 245 öğrenciden elde edilen bulgular sonucunda 29 öğrencinin verileri çıkarılmıştır. Geriye kalan 216 ortaokul öğrencisi fen bilimleri dersi hakkında 72 adet, fen bilimleri öğretmeni hakkında 82 adet, bilim hakkında 88 adet ve bilim insanı hakkında 88 adet anlamlı ve birbirlerinden farklı metafor üretmişlerdir. Yapılan çalışma sonucunda her 4 kavrama yönelik her 3 öğrenci farklı metaforlar oluşturmuştur. Bu durum ortaokulda öğrenim gören öğrencilerin hayal gücü ve benzetme yeteneklerinin güçlü olduğunu göstermektedir.

In today's society, the expected characteristics of the human being are the ones who knows how to reach to the most correct information, who can analyze that information, who can follow the new development of science and technology and who can apply in their daily life. In order to have these characteristics, in the education programs, there are some arrangements in terms of improving the student's ability to think, read and write scientifically. So that, this could lead increasing number of people who are qualified in their jobs and who are needed for development of science in society. When we investigate the aim of the education in science, it is obvious that it is important to change the false interpretation against scientists and replace them with positive image and attitude. In the current context, it is crucial that a student should change their false-attitude and image against scientists during intermediate school. The aim of this study is to reveal the students' mental-image and perspective for science, scientist, teacher in science by using metaphors during the intermediate school of the classes 5., 6., 7. and 8. students are generally having troubles while they are learning intangible notions. In that case, this might be caused by pre-knowledge of the students since their childhood and mis-concepts developed by during the time-being. During the education in science, it is very important to improve the students' ability in thinking while giving notions. Whereas metaphors are using intangible notions as a goal, while accepting that physical and tangible notion as a source. Therefore, there is a close relationship between using metaphor and constructivist approach. Metaphoric thought is an ability of making junctions on the basis of similarities between two different things. Metaphors are useful tools in education as they provide easy- understanding of scientific notions of students. In this study, we used phenomology method in order to reveal the science related- mental-notions of the students. The material was composed of total 245 students (127 female and 118 male) and taken randomly from 3 intermediate schools of the classes 5, 6, 7, 8 in the city of Izmir between 2014-2015 fall terms. As a methodology tool, students are given a paper writing 'science course is ...; because ....'', ''science teacher is....; because...'', '' science is ....; because....'', ''scientist is ....; because'' on it and the students were asked to complete the sentences with explaining the reason. Students are asked to produce a metaphor and explain their ideas after they are given a brief introduction about what is metaphor. The data is analyzed by the content analysis technique. Out of the data from 245 students who participated to study, 29 of them were excluded. When we investigated students' data, we saw that some students didn't justification their metaphors and some students used a lot of metaphors. In this reason, we extracted 29 students' metaphors and selected 216 students' metaphors. For example, "science course, science, knowledge and life is like. Because science has meant everything." phrase is removed from data. Because this example both science and knowledge, and has also been associated with life. The rest 216 intermediate students produced different and significant metaphors of 72 about science as a course, 82 about science-teacher, 88 about science and 88 about scientists. These metaphors are collected and categorized in terms of common notions. The category of ''sciencecourse'' was further sub-categorized in 8 groups for being as: 'research/investigation, easy/fun to do, important/needed, leading/guide, difficult to understand /difficulty, slow- in progress/time taking, integrative/comprehensive, repulsive/terrifying. The category of 'science-teacher' was composed of 6-sub-categories for being as: 'personal characteristics, supportive for personal development, Needed/important, informative/enlightening, the way how they transfer information. The category of 'science' was composed of following 6- sub-categories: science as a wide and infinite structure, science as a useful structure (applied science), science as a guide, a dynamic structure of science, indispensability of science, happiness of the science''. The categories of the metaphors of intermediate students for a 'scientist'' was composed of 4 different sub-categories as following: 'scientist who searches for, questioning, hard-working', 'the scientists who discover the information', 'the scientist who is useful', scientist who invents the information' On the average for each 4 notions, 3 students produced different metaphor. This ratio reveals how strong the imagination and resembling ability of the children is in that age. According to the out-come of our work, metaphors can be a useful and strong tool in order to reveal students notions and in understanding and explanation of personal image. In addition to, students see that science course is a lot of area; science teacher give a knowledge as scientist, doctor and book; science is dynamic structure; scientist is researcher, inquirer, humping. When we analyses the thesis studies held in our country in council of higher education (CoHE) database, there is limited number of studies in this topic and therefore this study will strengthen the literature. Furthermore, the results of the study will provide useful information for the teachers in that field, for the people who developed software and politicians in education.