Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to introduce the cognitive structures of social studies teachers candidates towards natural disasters through Word Association Test (WOT). The Social Studies Teaching student (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th grade) who studies in Gazi University forms the study group of the research. With the aim of forming the test, the seven key concepts that are composed of the most common natural disasters in Turkey (earthquake, forest fire, flood, landslide, avalanche, erosion, drought) are chosen. According to the research result, it has been observed that students mostly associate the concept of earthquake with destruction, avalanche with snow, erosion with soil, landslide with soil, drought with thirst, forest fire with tree and flood with rain. At the end of the research, it has been revealed that a notable part of the students are capable of forming sentences which include scientific information about the concepts of natural disasters (earthquake, forest fire, flood, landslide, avalanche, erosion, drought), and don't have a misconception of landslide and avalanche concepts. For the very few parts of the students, a misconception of earthquake, forest fire, flood, erosion, drought concepts is detected.

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