A phenomengraphic study on 5th grade students' i̇mages of concepts ; sun, earth and moon

Recently, learning differences among individuals become more important. One of these differences is the perception that occurred on individuals. According to Piaget; the mental development ,which applied is from concrete to discrete, can only be completed at the end of the primary education . When primary education curriculum is examined; it is observed that the 4th and 5th grade students who haven't completed these developmental processes, come cross with a lot of new concepts which are difficult to perceive and to form mental images, especially in Science and Technology course. In this study, it is aimed to investigate the mental images of the concepts (The Earth, the Sun and the Moon) that are difficult to perceive even though they are concrete concepts, and it is also aimed to reveal information about these students' perceptions which will be helpful for curriculum development and instruction. The sample of the research is 30 students (15 from each school) who are chosen randomly from two different schools in different socio-cultural districts. In order to determine the images of these concepts, half-structured interview forms were prepared, applied and analyzed and the data was analyzed as a phenomengraphic study. Phenomengraphic research method is a kind of qualitative research method used for answering the questions about thinking, learning and especially used in educational researches. The most important reason for using this method is that in the light of the study results and the recent, effective learning theories, the individual differences are discovered to be much more important than it is believed in the learning process. As a result of the data analysis, it is discovered that there are vast differences among students. These differences were analyzed by the teachers and the experts in the field and the tables of category, definition and characteristics for each concept were formed. Therefore, it is concluded that in a successful learning environment, the individual differences should be taken into consideration more.