Investigation of the effect of visual anthropomorphic stories on conceptual comprehension and anthropomorphic language use of secondary school students

In the literature on science education, it is stated that students in different age groups and even teachers use animism and anthropomorphism for inanimate objects (Kallery, 2004; Treagust, 2003). In this regard, the use of anthropomorphism and anime in science education is still being discussed by many researchers. In the study of Zohar and Ginossar (1998), when science teachers used anthropomorphic stories to explain scientific processes, it was seen that students remembered the lesson more easily. Tamir (1985), Al-Balushi (2013), Watts and Bentley (1994) say that teaching science with an anthropomorphic language or anthropomorphic stories will cause danger over scientific knowledge. In this context, the aim of this study is to investigate the effects of visual anthropomorphic stories on the conceptual understanding levels of 7th grade students. In this study, a quasi-experimental research model with pre-test post-test control group was used. This study was conducted in a secondary school in Buca, Izmir. Some of the 7th grade students in this secondary school were randomly assigned to the experimental group and some to the control group. For this purpose, pre-test was applied to the students in the experimental and control groups before the experimental application and after the experimental application, the same tests were applied as post-test to both groups. In the experimental group, while teaching with science activities supported by visual anthropomorphic stories; In the control group, 2018-2019 science teaching program was conducted with the activities included in the program. Tree different measurement tools were used in this study. The first of these is the "Two-tier Diagnostic Test for the Structure and Properties of Matter"; the second one is the "Anthropomorphic Language Usage Levels Test" and the third is the "Anthropomorphism and Animism Language Use Scale for the Concept of Atom". Descriptive and comparative statistical analyzes were performed on the data obtained from the study. Anthropomorphic language usage levels were higher in the experimental group than the control group. However, no significant difference was found between the conceptual understanding levels of the experimental and control groups. According to these results, it has been observed that the use of anthropomorphic stories in science courses has no negative effect.