Examining cognitive structures of 5th-grade middle-school students concerning the basic concepts of the topic of "recycling"

The purpose of the present study is to make a comparative analysis of the cognitive structures of 5th-grade middle-school students concerning the basic concepts of the topic "Recycling" in terms of gender. The study is designed with a descriptive research design. The study group consists of a total of 97 5th-grade middle school students enrolled at an imam hatip (religious) middle school in the Yıldırım district of the province of Bursa. The Word Association Test, the drawing technique and the recycling awareness test consisting of six open-ended questions were used as data collection tools in order to reveal the cognitive structures of students regarding the basic concepts of the topic of recycling. Eight key concepts were used in the word association test: recycling, waste, trash, natural resource, pollutants, raw material, filtering, and environmental problems. The data obtained from the word association test were analyzed through the descriptive method and compared by creating conceptual networks through the breakpoint technique. The concepts included in the drawings were listed to come up with frequency tables, which were then used for gender-based comparisons. Finally, the recycling awareness test of six open-ended questions was given to students with the objective of identifying prior knowledge among students on the subject matter. The results were then combined with other findings to reach conclusions. In line with the findings obtained from the recycling awareness test, it was found that the students have a general knowledge on the subject of recycling and deem recycling necessary, that they first and most frequently encounter the concept of recycling at school, that female students mostly define recycling as renewal/recreation while their male colleagues describe it as reuse, that most students from both groups consider the concepts of recycling, recovery and reuse to be synonymous, which indicates incomplete or incorrect knowledge among students, and that both groups mainly focus on recycling paper in their explanations about recycling. As both groups associate recycling with trash and non-recyclable materials, one might claim that there are misconceptions within both groups based on the findings from the word association tests. There were no striking differences among the pictures drawn about recycling within the framework of the application of the drawing technique. Male students drew male figures recycling materials, and female students used their own gender while depicting people engaged in recycling. It was also found that in the drawings of female students, the individuals who litter are generally depicted to be male. The drawings of female students were more elaborate and detailed whereas those of their male colleagues were simpler but narrated the recycling process. Recycling bins and the recycling symbol were the common items included in the drawings by both groups. The conceptual maps compiled indicated that students confuse the concepts of waste and trash, that they most frequently associate environmental pollution with environmental problems, and that both groups indicated humans as the basic factor creating and spreading the pollutants associated with trash and waste. The study also found that both groups associate geographical forms with natural resources, that female students provided more comprehensive responses and made more associations regarding the key concept of raw materials, mostly giving the example of wheat and bread, that some students have certain misconceptions about the concept of filtering even though the most frequently given answer in this category among both groups was water.