Trend in topics and methodological analysis of theses on science education in Turkey

The purpose of this research, i) to examine thesis type, thesis year, university where thesis was conducted, and thesis supervisor title, ii) to determine general tendency by analyzing the topics studied in the theses, iii) to examine the methods used in theses, and iv) to present the findings obtained in the research with the vine map technique created in this study, in the master's and doctoral thesis on science education that have been conducted in Turkey between the years 1990-2017. It is planned to present the frequency of the subjects studied in the theses on science education conducted between the years 1990-2017 in Turkey by created vine map. In the study, document analysis, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. Within the content of the study, 1714 theses on science education were analyzed. "Thesis Centre" of Yükseköğretim Kurulu (YÖK) was used for searching the theses in Turkey. "Thesis Classification Form" and "Thesis Search Form" created in the research were used as data collection tools. 1714 theses which had full access and conducted between the years 1990-2017 were examined by descriptive analysis. With the obtained data, the type and distribution of years of the theses on science education in Turkey between the years 1990-2017 was showed by the frequency table. Then, in which university the theses in Turkey is conducted and the titles of thesis supervisor are shown in tables. The subjects studied in the theses, characteristics of the sample group, research methods and models used in the theses, data collection tools and data analysis methods used in the theses were given by frequency tables. By creating the concept nets for each of the issues studied in the theses in Turkey, in which years the topics were studied and which methodological techniques were used in the studies were presented. Finally, by using data obtained by concept nets, "Vine Map", developed in this study, was created in order to show the frequency of studies in science education according to periods. According to the findings of the study, it was seen that most of the theses were master's theses; there was a significant increase in the number of theses in some periods (especially between 2005-2012) when the years of the theses were examined; Gazi University, Middle East Technical University, Atatürk University, Marmara University, Dokuz Eylül University and Karadeniz Technical University came into prominence respectively as the university where theses were written and "assistant professor doctors" were the academicians studying as the theses supervisor at most. Then, when the frequencies of the studied topics are examined, it was seen that approaches/ methods/ strategies and techniques, programs, misconceptions and concept teaching, environmental education, exam/ book /institution analysis were studied at most. When the teaching approaches / methods / strategies and techniques are investigated, on the other hand, it was found that there were 126 different topics in itself. Among these topics, the most common studied topics were computer based learning, cooperative learning, constructivist approach, laboratory method/ experiment techniques, argumentation, project-based learning, problem-based learning and research-inquiry-based learning, respectively. In terms of the methodological characteristics of the theses, it was determined that secondary school students were preferred as the sample group; quantitative research method was used as the research method, and the experimental model was used as the research model at most. Moreover, it was observed that the most preferred data collection tools were tests, while descriptive analyzes and t-tests were used as data analysis method in these theses at most. In addition, it has been determined that methodological features were not presented clearly in many theses. As a result, it was concluded that studying postgraduate thesis topics in Turkey may have been influenced by the work done in abroad and the topics studied in abroad in the past years have been studied in Turkey after years, but, in recent years, current topics also have been studied in Turkey by means of developing internet and communications network. It has been suggested that a national thesis template can be created to reduce deficiencies in thesis abstracts, a computer program can be developed to draw a vine map and the topics that researchers could be studied. Keywords: science education, postgraduate, methodological analysis, vine map, trend in topics.