Images of Scientists through the Eyes of the Children

Abstract

-The purpose of this study is to determine primary school students' images of scientists. As research approach, the survey method, which is frequently used to learn about people's attitudes, beliefs, values, demographics, behavior, opinions, habits, desires, ideas and other types of information, was used. The study was conducted in the spring semester of 2011-2012 academic year with primary school students enrolling through the first grade to the fifth grade. The data of the study were collected by a Draw-A-Scientist-Test. When scoring a DAST drawing, the raters coded each indicator with either 1 or 0 points depending on the presence or absence of the feature under examination. Drawings revealed that although there are variations from individual to individual, children hold common stereotypical images of scientists. The overwhelming majority of drawings were of male scientists. Children also produced images that represent individuals with messy hair, wearing glasses, wearing a laboratory coat. Also children depicted that scientists usually work in indoors, usually in a laboratory, and perform experiments.

Developing Scientific Practices in Primary School: Benzene Ring Heuristic (BRH) Application

“…This conflicts with many previous studies (e.g. Atas & Senler, 2018;Bayram, 2018;Çeliker & Avci, 2015;Kemaneci, 2012;Ozsoy & Ahi, 2014) in which students tended to draw scientists as males. The difference could be due to the fact that in the present study, the majority of the participating students were female.…”