Investigation of middle school student's cognitive structures regarding political literacy concepts through the Word Association Test (WAT)

This study aims to determine the cognitive structures and existing misconceptions of secondary school students regarding political literacy concepts. The Word Association Test (WAT) was used as the data collection tool in the research, for which the descriptive model was carried out. As part of the study, the data was collected from 230 (126 Male - 104 Female) 7th-grade students at the middle schools in the central districts of the province of Ankara that are affiliate with the Ministry of National Education. Students' cognitive structures regarding the subject of Political Literacy were analyzed through their responses to the key concepts of "State, Democracy, Government, Election, Public Opinion, Right, Opposition, Freedom, Republic, Ideology, and Responsibility." The word associations in the students' responses for the key concepts took place as the homeland for the key concept of state; freedom for the key concepts of democracy, right, and republic; state for the key concept of government; vote for the key concepts of election and party; people for the key concept of the public; dissent for the key concept of opposition; right for the key concept of freedom; thought for the key concept of ideology; and studying for the key concept of responsibility. In the data analysis, the frequency tables of the students' responses to the key concepts were formed, and concept networks were created by determining cut-off points. In addition, students were asked to write a sentence for each key concept in the Word Association Test (WAT) to reveal their cognitive structures. The sentences that the students wrote down regarding the key concepts were categorized as sentences with scientific information, sentences with unscientific or superficial information, and sentences with a misconception. The research results showed that the students' non-scientific or superficial information formed the majority, and the participants also had misconceptions about the concepts of the republic and public opinion.