EXAMINATION OF METAPHORICAL PERCEPTIONS REGARDING MATHEMATICS CONCEPTS IN SECONDARY SCHOOL 7TH GRADE STUDENTS: EXAMPLE OF PRIME NUMBER, RATIONAL NUMBER AND INTEGRATED NUMBER

Abstract

The individual continues to live in the environment he is in after birth and continues his life after childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. In these processes, when the individual was born, the age of going to school, when he graduated from high school, the date he celebrates his birthday every year, and the number of the shoes he wears consist of mathematical expressions, in other words, numbers. The aim of this research is to examine the metaphorical perceptions of 7th-grade students about the natural number, integer, rational number, and prime number concepts that they use in mathematics lessons. The study group of this research, which was conducted with a phenomenological design, which is one of the qualitative research methods, consists of 91 seventh grade students studying in the 7th grade of secondary school in Turkey in the 2022-2023 academic year and participating in the research online. 53.85% (49 students) of the students participating in the research are male and 46.18% (42 students) are female students. A maximum variation sampling method was used to determine the students. The data of the research are the data collection form through metaphors and the visual documents of the metaphors that the students put forward for the given concepts.

In the form of data collection through metaphors, students were asked “natural numbers are similar to … because…”, “integers are similar to … because…”, “rational numbers are similar to … because…”, “prime numbers are similar to … because … They were asked to complete the sentences. In addition, they were asked to draw visuals related to these concepts, leaving enough space under each concept. Research data were analyzed by content analysis technique. The content analysis process consists of four stages: coding and sorting, creating a list of metaphors, determining categories and converting metaphors into quantitative data. It was determined that the students compared natural numbers to inanimate objects and nature in the literary sense, compared them to pictures with numbers-operational content in a pictorial sense, and compared Integers to numbers-symbols-operations in a written sense, and compared them to pictures with numbers-operations-symbols in a pictorial sense. In addition, it has been determined that Rational Numbers are likened to inanimate beings in literary terms, pictures with numbers-operation-symbols and living beings in pictorial sense, Prime Numbers are most like living beings in literary terms, and pictures that contain numbers-operations-symbols most in pictorial sense.