The use of analogy in science teaching: Reconsideration of the analogies in science textbooks during teaching

Analogies are one of the instructional techniques, which are used science education frequently describing an unknown concept, action, system or object by using the characteristics of known and making comparisons with similarities. Because the analogies could cause misconceptions if they do not use carefully, how analogies are used in science teaching is important as well as which analogies are used. This master thesis aimed to investigate the analogies in science textbooks and how they were used, to reconsider the identified analogies and revise them for science teaching, and examine the opinions of science educators about the effective use of analogies in science teaching and tried to find answers to these questions: (1) How are the analogies used in science textbooks? (2) How could the analogies used in science textbooks be improved for science teaching? (3) According to science educators, what are the most important elements to increase the effectiveness of analogies in science teaching? In order to find answer to the first research question, science textbooks from 3rd grade to 8th grade (6 textbooks), which were approved to be used in 2017-2018 academic year by Ministry of Education, were conducted to content analysis. In the second question, how the analogies used in textbooks were identified, their characteristics were determined in the light of literature, and the examples were presented about how they could be developed in science teaching. In the third question, the issues which are important for the increasing the effectiveness of analogies in science teaching were identified by implementing a questionnaire to science educators in two universities (10 academic staff, who are expert in science education and 120 elementary pre-service science teacher education students). In this research totally 141 analogies were identified in science textbooks, 18 analogies of which at the 3rd grade, 26 analogies at the 4th grade, 24 analogies at the 5th grade, 22 analogies at the 6th grade, 25 analogies at the 7th grade and 26 analogies at the 8th grade. When the analogies used in science textbooks considered by science topic, most of the analogies were identified in 'Human Body' topic; when they were considered by discipline, most of the analogies were identified in physics discipline; and when they were considered by unit, most of the analogies were identified in the first unit. It was identified that the analogies were mainly related structural; verbal; by a concrete target associated with a concrete analog; as an embedded activator in the middle of the topic; simple without the discussion of similarities; without pre-topic orientation; without explaining the limitations of analogies; relating environmental structures and conditions; presenting plain text and using for discriminating the topics. The identified analogies mainly include one or some of the issues focused in Teaching With Analogies Method such as pre-topic orientation by explaining the analog, mapping the similarities and explaining the limitations of analogies by stating dissimilarities. For this reason, it was proposed that the analogies to be improved during teaching and the examples were presented how they could be improved. In this research, science educators explained that the use of analogies in science classes had effect on students' understanding the science concepts; analogies could be used in classes moderately; there were some topics and student groups that the analogies could not be used effectively. In addition, science educators mostly explained that analogies should be verbal-pictorial; concretizing the abstract things; with enriched or extended mapping; explaining the analog when constructing analogies; constructing analogies from the environment; presenting analogies by inquiry-discussion; stating dissimilarities in the analogies about the which characteristics of analogies were important for effective use. There are some different explanations between academic staff, who are expert in science education and pre-service science teachers about the analogical relationship, position of the analog related to the target, source domain and the aim of use. Finally, science educators mostly think that analogies could be used in science textbooks as well as they were used in science classes, however they believe that the analogies must be used by overcoming the existent deficiencies when using during teaching. The opinions of academic staff expert in science education about the effective use of analogies were mainly formal, but the opinions stated by pre-service science teachers were mainly informal. Meanwhile, pre-service science teachers presented analogies in limited proportion by comparison to academic staff. In science education, analogies are important for directing students' learning, clarification of science topics, construction of mental models, to gain interest, to motivate students, and visualize the concepts. For this reason, it is important that how the analogies were used in textbooks, improvement of the analogies for the effective use by revision, and the opinions of science educators about the effective use of analogies for science teaching.