Abstract
The objective of this study is to determine the cognitive structures of the students of geography teaching department by identifying their conceptual frameworks about the concept of earthquake. A case study design from qualitative research approaches was used in this research. Sample group of the study constitutes 155 students from the Department of Geography Teaching who took the course of natural disasters. Free Word Association Test was used to collect the data. The data were evaluated according to the content analysis, categories were formed according to the results of this evaluation and frequencies and percentages of the response words in each category were calculated. A total of 9 categories were created according to their semantic associations. Some of them are; “concepts about earthquake, damages of the earthquake, a category of defining earthquake, types and causes of earthquakes, landforms caused by earthquakes and other effects” and they form the dominant categories. The frequencies and percentages of some categories are low such as; “The things that earthquake makes feel, regions where earthquakes happened before or there is a possibility to happen, people, institutions and organizations about earthquakes, helping to the victims of the earthquakes, factors affecting the safety of life and property in the earthquake”. In addition, this study revealed that students have some alternative concepts about earthquake.
Highlights
Geography is a science which brings people some features such as thinking versatility and creatively, foreseeing, using the information in their daily lives, caring the social, cultural and economic issues happening in their environment
The findings obtained with the word association test under this title were coded and arranged into categories
Response words given for the key word of earthquake were classified and categories were created by bringing the similar ones together
Summary
Geography is a science which brings people some features such as thinking versatility and creatively, foreseeing, using the information in their daily lives, caring the social, cultural and economic issues happening in their environment. Word association is a technique used to reveal the students’ cognitive structures and bonds between the concepts in these structures; namely the information network; and used to determine whether the relationships between concepts in long-term memory are sufficient or meaningful or not (Bahar & Özatlı, 2003). In this method, student answers with certain words that came to his mind first in a certain period of time about key concepts given on any subjects. According to Semenderoğlu and Aydın (2014), constructivist curriculum implementation provides benefits for such many aspects as; determination of misconceptions, improving the processes of conceptual understanding, realization of permanent learning, the development of attitudes towards the courses and this approach will increase the quality of teaching
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