The metaphorical perceptions of secondary and high school students about religious concepts (The example of Bartın province)

This research aims to examine the metophorical perceptions of secondary and high school students about the religious concepts that they encounter in their daily and education life, and is a qualitative research in the scientific pattern. The universe of our research constitutes by middle and high school students, which took place in the academic year 2018-2019. The sampling was determined by a typical case sampling method and Bartın İMKB Secondary School 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th- grade students and Davut Firinci Anatolian High School 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th- grade students which they located in the 1st education region of Bartın, constituted the sample of the research. As a data collecting tool, a semi-structured questionnaire has been developed. In the questionnaire, students were asked to develop metaphors about religion, hereafter, heaven, hell, prayer, fasting, zakat, justice, mercy, gratitude, conscience, lying, prophets and Quran which are religious concepts and they were asked to state reasons fort he metaphors the developed. The data is analyzed with content analysis. Participants divided into 4 groups according to their mental development periods to get healthier results from the analysis. Data that cannot be evaluated as a metaphor and consisted of abstract concepts removed before creating categories with concepts that students associated. After the categories created about metaphors, these data are also included. Numerous categories have been created for each concept. As a result of the study, it was determined that the participants had difficulties in developing metaphors related to some concepts. It is understood that the reason for this is that some students have missing or wrong knowledge about the concept, and some of them cannot activate their imagination because of learning by memorizing not comprehendingly. In the research, it's been observed that the most metaphor developed concepts are respectively; hell, heaven and Quran. The least metaphor developed concepts are important concepts in terms of both religious and social moral values such as conscience, mercy and gratitude. In the result part, information and evaluations about acquired metaphors are given together. Following these, suggestions are given.