Turkish Primary Students’
Perceptions about Scientist and
What Factors Affecting the Image
of the Scientists
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Ege Üniversitesi, İzmir, TURKEY
Publication date: 2008-01-22
EURASIA J. Math., Sci Tech. Ed 2008;4(1):55-61
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Students' views of science and scientists have been widely studied. The purpose of this
study is to analyze image of scientist from drawn picture of scientists using The Draw-a-
Scientist Test (DAST) by 5th grade students and to analyze where this image comes from
students’ minds in changing Turkish educational perspective. Two hundred eighty seven
students from sixteen different primary schools, located in the same city, participated in
this study. Like previous studies, the findings generally showed that scientists are male,
Caucasians, elderly-aged, working indoors with chemistry. On the contrary, the image of
scientists, having glasses and facial hair and/or crazy hair, wearing lab coats, and doing
dangerous and secrecy things decreased but smiling scientists and indicator of technology
increased in young Turkish students’ drawings. Eventually, stereotypical images of the
scientist are a slightly lesser than revealed in previous studies. The impact of science
teachers and textbooks has shaped what a scientist is and what a scientist does to young
students’ minds. Notwithstanding, the influence of media (movies, magazines, television,
etc.) has been pointed to as not significant source of information by students.