Effects of physical environment of primary school on children's spatial perception and behavior: The case of Kagithane

The relationship between the child and the physical environment is an area of interaction that includes social, psychological, perceptual, cultural factors and the spatial experience, perception and behavior of the child. This thesis study was based on affects of the spatial perception and behavior of the child in the physical environment of primary schools, in which is the most time spent after home and streets from the birth of the child. In this direction, it was aimed to investigate how spatial and physical characteristics of physical environments of schools affect the spatial perception and behavior of the child in primary schools with different typologies. In the second part of this thesis, it was given a place to a literature survey, which includes the affects of the characteristics the perceptual and behavioral development of the child, who is the user of the built enviroment. The child's development, especially child's cognitive development is directly related to the physical environment. Though theorists, such as Piaget, Vygotskt, Bruner and Bronfenbrenner, have different theories of development, the common belief is that the development becomes in order and the physical environment affects the cognitive development of the child in addition to hereditary, economic, social and cultural influences. This part of the study also includes the process of the physical, social, emotional and cognitive development of the child, who is in the process of the continious development. The behavioral relationship has been discussed with the development of the child's spatial perception which has been examined with topological, projective, metric and imaginative features. At the same time, the prominence and features of the cognitive mapping method, which constitutes a large part of the field work within the scope of the thesis, are introduced. In the third part, primary school education institutions and their physical environment, which have important role in the development of the child, are examined. Firstly, the definition of primary schools and the role and aims of education in the world and in Turkey are explained. Primary and secondary school buildings in Turkey and in the world have been studied in urban, spatial, physical and functional scale. However, physical features of primary education institutions such as spaces, structural and spatial needs, color, texture, material and light have been introduced. The common spaces, which is choosen as a field study in selected schools are kept in the front and mentioned relation of the users. Primary school buildings were considered in three categories, street-planned, campus-planned and mixed, and it was tried to develop a critical perspective on the concept of typical project in Turkey. Within the scope of the thesis, selected the schools from the world and Turkey with different typologies were examined in order to construct the functional and spatial criticism of the schools. In the fourth part of the thesis, the spatial and physical characteristics of the three primary schools were introduced and informations given about the Kağıthane district of Istanbul where selected primary schools of field work were located. Selected primary schools, Ziyapaşa and Nef Primary Schools are located in Ortabayır district and İsmail Erez Primary School is located in Hamidiye district. Selected schools were chosen for their close spatial and dimensional features and location of their similar socio-economic environment. However, the observation of the field work, the analysis of the cognitive maps of the drawings of the students and the method of the focused group interviews were taken place in the study. It is anticipated that there will emerge cognitive maps, which includes different levels of knowledge, and usage of social interaction at different levels on the idea of the creation of differences in spatial perception levels between designed contextual data and non-designed contextual data of the primary schools. For this reason, it was observed within the scope of the field that how and why children use common spaces inside and outside of the school. It was aimed to discover the spatial and physical details obtained from the drawings, the priorities and perceptions about the children's memories of the inside and the outside of the school. It was aimed to increase the accuracy of the study by comparing the findings of observation and cognitive maps with the help of key words obtained from focused group interviews. Observations, which are the first stage of the field work, have been made during lunch breaks, when children spend most of their times in the common spaces, and on three different days, one of it was in a bad weather condition. Children's playtimes are more often used to meet urgent personal needs. For this reason, this data is ignored for usage of the unhealty data of that times. Observations were photographed and video recordings were taken through the camera recording systems in the schools. In addition, each observation was recorded in 10-minute intervals to make the 40-minute of lunch break equal and measurable. During this time, it was observed that where the children spent their time, which activities they choose and the difficulties they faced as a result of their physical activities and spatial experiences, and processed data according that activities. Following the observations, the second stage of the case study contains about children's drawings of the inside and outside the school. The aim of the drawing work is to try to find out how children perceive the school as cognitive, based on their own observations, backgrounds and past experiences. The drawing work was carried out with the participation of 30 girls and 20 boys from Ziyapaşa Primary School, 31 girls and 25 boys from Nef Elementary School, 33 girls and 21 boys from Ismail Erez Elementary School. The children were given one A4 paper for the drawing work. The following sentence was written on a surface of paper for the first 15 minutes: "Draw your school as a bird's eye view of how you see it from the inside". On the other surface of paper, the following sentence is written for the second 15 minutes: "Draw your school together with the garden, how you see it from the outside". During the drawing, the children were released about the color of their pencil. The study was carried out by choosing one student from third grade and one student from fourth grade of students from each school. When drawings were evaluated, spatial learning relations that are directly related to children's mental development and spatial organization, namely topological, projective, metric and imaginary space characteristics are analyzed. When the drawings were evaluated, attention has been paid to the correct specification of the physical conditions of the school and the correct positioning of the school premises. In the classroom spaces with more detailed drawings, importance were given to the dimensional, proportional, perspective and projective relations of the physical properties of the interior. These qualitatively interpreted relationships were evaluated by considering school and gender variation. In the third stage of the case study, the students were asked about their favorite places and objects about the inside and outside of school and vice versa. With the keywords extraction from this study were tried to make a comparative analysis by drawing work and crossing the observations. As a result of the case study, the buildings which are designed considering the connection specific data is seen that spatial perception affects positively the creation of visual stimuli (color, texture, form), which helping him gain his identity by the expression of Lynch, at the 9-10 age group children period of concrete transactions. In this context, it is supported by the case study which revealed the state of perception on a scale ranging from single space to general structure. In this context, the situation of the perception is affected by a wide scale from single space to general structure, and this result is supported by the case study. As another parameter affecting spatial perception, gender differences can be discussed. Schools with different typologies can cause spatial perception differences. However, the spatial perception in the buildings which are designed in open plan is realized on a wider scale without regard to the girl-boy. For students as users, it can be said that forming physical relationships around the building can be social, develop and discover their creativity, creating places where they can gain different experiences and re-construct can strengthen the spatial perception. Likewise, the frequency of use of spaces affects about the spatial perception of the spaces used and their immediate surroundings positively. As a result, primary school education is one of the factors that play an important role in cognitive development and social relations of the individual. Education is not only an educational process; it is an open and changing-transforming system that communicates with its environment. Therefore, the education system that is designed to fit these changes and transformations can be provided only with educational buildings, which has a spatial fiction that can keep up with innovations in parallel. For this reason, primary school buildings keep its importance as important stoppages after the school for children. Therefore, the designs of primary school buildings should be considered.