Abstract:

The aim of this study is to examine preschool Teacher Candidates perceptions of science and science education concepts through metaphors. For this purpose, a total of 227 teacher candidates, studying in the Department of Preschool Education at Çukurova University in the Faculty of Education, were asked to complete the following sentences: “Science is ……. because …” and “Preschool science education is like …… because…”. The answers obtained from the preschool Teacher Candidates were categorized by content analysis. In this research, metaphors related to science and science education were combined and grouped into seven categories: “essential part/source of life, process-graded, entertaining, cumulative, enlightening/guiding, unknown/eternity, making life difficult/boring”. When the preschool Teacher Candidates’ metaphors were examined, it was seen that in terms of science, the students produced 63 metaphors of 51 different types and in terms of science education; they produced 73 metaphors of 43 different types. The results revealed that the essential part/source of life, process-graded and making life difficult/boring categories came to the fore. Finally, it was seen that the majority of the metaphors produced by preschool Teacher Candidates reflect a positive point of view.

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