Secondary school students' cognitive structures and views on multifunctional agricultural literacy in the context of climate change

This study aims to reveal middle school students' cognitive structures and views on multifunctional agricultural literacy keywords in the context of global climate change. The research was designed with a holistic case study from qualitative method approaches. The study was conducted with 150 students studying in the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades of a public school in the central district of Bolu Province in the 2023-2024 academic year. During the data collection process, a word association test was administered to the students. The WAT was created based on 14 stimulating keywords (Agriculture, Climate Change, Food Allergy, Livestock, Sustainable Development, Biotechnology, Food Safety, Energy, Halal Food, Compost, Bio-smuggling, Global Warming, Genetically Modified Organism (GMO), Healthy Nutrition) selected as the common key concepts of multifunctional agricultural literacy and climate change. In addition, their opinions were taken through a structured interview form regarding agricultural literacy and climate change. During the data analysis process, frequency tables were prepared from the answer words given by the students in the test, and concept networks showing the cognitive structures of multifunctional agricultural literacy were created for 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. The results of the structured interview forms were tabulated and the findings at all grade levels were shared. The research results reveal that students shallowly associate the keywords related to agricultural literacy with the subject of global climate change, they produce different answer words related to daily life, and the word networks extracted from the frequency tables reveal that students have potential misconceptions regarding multifunctional agricultural literacy and their cognitive structures are not sufficiently developed. In line with the results of the study, suggestions were made to researchers in different contexts.