Abstract:

The aim of this study is to examine education managers' and teachers' perceptions towards academician concept through metaphors. The study group consisted of 232 teachers and 34 education managers determined according to convenience sampling method. In the data collection process, a form was designed such as "Academician is like ..., because ..." and were administered by online to participants. The study was designed by phenomenology which is one of the qualitative research methods and the data were analyzed by content analysis. Metaphors were grouped under 5 positive conceptual categories as “researcher, light source, guide, information treasure and building block. While education managers used the "light and sun"  metaphors, teachers  used  “light and researcher" metaphors. Education managers positively stated that academicians were “light sources", teachers also emphasized that academicians were “researcher”.  On the other hand, 6 negative conceptual categories such as “self-righteous, slave, non-honey bee, parasite, asocial, get things done” were created according to the explanations. When expressing negative thoughts about the academician, education managers used metaphors that "mole, wasp, octopus, forget their families". Teachers mostly focused on metaphors of “smart aleck, cocky/egoist and copycat”. Education managers negatively referred to the “asocial” aspect of academics. Teachers emphasized the "self-righteous” aspect. Moreover, two-way (positive / negative) metaphors such as “spouse, cactus, carbon" and 6 metaphors that do not fall into any category were created by the teachers alone.

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