Investigation of the metaphoric perceptions of secondary school students on chemistry concepts in science lesson

In this study, it was aimed to investigate the metaphoric perceptions of secondary school students towards chemistry concepts in Science course. In this study, phenomonology pattern of qualitative method is used. The study group of the research consists of 318 secondary school students studying in Atasehir district of Istanbul in 2018-2019 academic year. In the study, a data collection tool consisting of two parts was used as data collection tool. In the first part, "Atom is like..…… Because ……", in the second part, "Explain what the concept of Atom reminds you by drawing" questions take place. Data collection tools were created for each of the concepts of heat, temperature, density, atom, element, compound, mixture, acid and base determined for the research as depicted in the example. Content analysis method was used in the analysis and interpretation of the data obtained from the students. While analyzing the data, the stages of coding and elimination, finding themes, developing category, ensuring validity and reliability, calculating and interpreting frequencies were followed. Miles Huberman's formula was used for the reliability of the study and the average reliability between the researcher and the field expert was determined as 90.91 %. Frequency values and percentage values of the data obtained in the study were tabulated. In the first part of the data collection form, the metaphors developed by the students were grouped under nine conceptual categories considering their common characteristics. In this scope, it was determined that the metaphors developed by the students about chemistry concepts were mostly concentrated in the category of science terms metaphors. Keywords: Metaphor, Chemistry Concepts, Science Education, Concept Teaching.