The effect of the interactive book reading program on primary school second-grade students' images of scientist

This research aims to investigate how an interactive book reading program (IBRP) affects primary school students' images of scientist. The research group consists of 12 second-graders from a primary school in the Erbaa district of Tokat province. "Draw a scientist test-Draw a Scientist (DAST)" and "semi-structured interview form" were used as data collection tools. The research was carried out in two stages: a pilot and a main study. Before the students started the IBRP activities, their images of scientist were determined through DAST. Then, the IBRP activity was conducted, and DAST was once again implemented to determine the participants' new images of scientist. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to make the construct data (drawings) obtained from the participants through DAST more understandable. The Scientist Drawing Checklist-Draw a Scientist Checklist (DAST-C) was used to analyze the data gathered through drawings, and content analysis was used to analyze the data gathered through semi-structured interviews. The overall DAST-C score that participants can get from the drawings ranges from 0 to 15. A total score of nearly to 15 reflects that the person has a stereotype scientist image. The participants' DAST-C scores before and after IBRP were compared in order to get some results. According to the results, the DAST-C scores of the students determined after the IBRP activity were lower than the DAST-C scores determined before the activity. The low DAST-C scores obtained after the activity indicated that the students tended to move away from the stereotype scientist image relatively after the IBRP activity. In addition, based on the research findings, it has been suggested that IBRP can be used as an alternative wat in teaching concepts related to the nature of science.