The Perspectives of Teacher Trainees’ Regarding the Concept of “Child” by Means of Metaphors (A Longitudinal Study)

This study was carried out to reveal the changes related to the “child” concept of the teacher trainees through metaphors in their first and forth years based on behaviourism and constructivism. 104 teacher trainees studying at the faculty of education of a state university between 2007 and 2011 participated in the study. As a data collection tool, teacher trainees were given a paper on which “a child is like…; because…” was written. This paper was accepted as a written document. Qualitative and quantitative techniques were carried out in order to analyse the data. The metaphors gathered through the papers were analysed according to qualitative analysis principles. Kruskal-Wallis H Test was performed in order to find out whether the relation between the departments of the teacher trainees and the philosophical foundations of the metaphors they devised was significant. As a result of data analysis, it was observed that there was not an important change in the philosophical foundations of the metaphors devised by the teacher trainees regarding the concept of “child”. In addition, there was not a significant difference between the departments of teacher trainees and the philosophical foundations of the metaphors they devised in their final year.