Identifying students' perceptions about mathematics lesson and mathematics teachers via metaphors

The aim of this study is identify students' perceptions, about mathematics lesson which usually students have toruble succeding in, about the mathematics teachers, constitutina the most critical factor in mathematics education. The focus group of survey consists of 640 students from 10 distinct private educational intitutions, located in 5 districts (Çankaya, Keçiören, Yenimahalle, Gölbaşı, Mamak) of province Ankara; which is composed of 347 female, 293 male individuals, 61 of which is 6th, 235 is 7 and 44 is 8th grade students. The questionnaire from which was used to obtain data. The questionnaire of formed of foor sections, namely, 1 personel informantion (school name, grade level, gender, monthly income, etc.). 2) Eight questions devoted to evoluate the perception of mathematics subject,on of which is on open ended question. 3) Six questions regarding to evoluate the perception of mathematics teacher, two of which are open ended questions. 4) In the last section, the students are asked to draw two sketches to Express their toughts about both mathematics subject and mathematics teacher. The restrictire (i.e. which are not open ended) in the 2nd and 3nd sections are in the fill- in- the- blanks form such as "Mathematics is ... because..." . Content analysis is choosen as the qualitative data analysis method.The groups formed in consequence of content analysis of answers to questions devoted to mathematics subject correspond to "hierarchical-gradual subject", "a subject contains many topics", "easy and enjoyable subject", "hard and boring subject" themes.Almost questions, the most preferred theme is "hard and boring subject" theme. The groups formed in consequence of content analysis of answers to questions regarding the mathematics teacher belong to "goal person", "bad person", "intelligant person" themes. The "intelligant person" theme is most outstandingly preferred one among others; whereas according to chi- square test results the perception of the mathematics and mathematics teacher emerge to be more negative as the grade level and students' father's educational status increases.Key Words: Mathematics, mathematics teacher, metaphor