Investigating primary school students' perceptions regarding "teacher" through their drawings

Abstract

The teacher is one of the main components of education. Teachers take on the role ofdesigning, organizing, maintaining and evaluating the learning - teaching process. While teachers fulfill these tasks they are in an intensive interaction with their students and this interaction causes significant changes in students' learning and personal behaviors. Especially in primary education teachers are seen as models by students and their perceptions related to "teacher" are reflected on the educational experiences of students. Therefore it is important to investigate what the students' perceptions regarding teachers, who leave important traces in individuals' lives and have active roles in the formation of one's behaviours, are. This study aimed at investigating primary school students' perceptions related to "Teacher" with the help of their drawings. To reach the aim of the study, the following research questions were asked: 1. How did the primary school students reflect their perception regarding "Teacher" in their drawings? 2. What were the views of students about their drawings? The participants of this qualitative study were fourth grade primary school students in Eskişehir, Turkey. The study was carried out in the spring term of 2008 - 2009 academic year with 45 students. The data of the study were collected through the drawings of students' about "teacher" and interviews with the students about their drawings. For the analysis of the data, descriptive analysis was conducted. In the study, seven themes were determined as a result of the analysis of the students' drawings indicating their perceptions about the teacher and the semi-structured interviews with them on these drawings. The themes are: "Teacher as instructor-informant", "Teacher as guidedirector", "Teacher as helpful person", "Teacher as a respected person", "Teacher as a holy creature", "Teacher as a model, "Teacher as entertainer"