Examination of middle school students' metaphorical perceptions towards the concept of music

This research aims to reveal middle school students' perceptions towards the concept of music through metaphors. The research study group consists of 250 randomly selected students studying in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grades of 23 Nisan Middle School affiliated with the Ministry of Education operating in the Aksaray city center in the 2024-2025 academic year. The research employed one of the qualitative research methods, phenomenological research design. Data in the study were obtained through a semi-structured interview form. The students were asked to fill in the interview form which included open-ended statements such as "music is like ……….; because ……….". Content analysis method was used in the data analysis. Content analysis was conducted in five stages. The stages were coding and sorting, compiling sample metaphor imageries, creating categories, ensuring validity and reliability, and transferring the data to the SPSS package program for quantitative data analysis. To ensure the validity and reliability of the research, expert opinion was sought and reliability was calculated to be 91% using the Miles and Huberman (1994) formula. As a result of the research, it was found that the middle school students in the study group produced 69 different metaphors for the concept of music and the most reoccurring of these metaphors were a "therapy", "guide" and "compass". Metaphors produced by students were divided into 7 conceptual categories based on their common features. It was determined that the categories represented most by students were; music as a healing/therapeutic aspect, music as a means of expressing feelings and thoughts and music with its advising/guiding aspect. In the research, it was concluded that the students expressed their senses and thoughts towards the concept of music through producing positive metaphors and in this context their' perceptions towards the concept of music were in a positive way.