Investigating junior high school students' perception of global warming topic using semantic network analysis

Abstract

Understanding how students perceive global warming concept is important for their metacognition. A total of 241 junior high school students including all grades were involved in this research. With an open-ended question, this research identified students' perception of global warming concept. Semantic network analysis was chosen as the method to determined and displayed students' perception by checking the connection of the words used to response the open-ended question. After the process of analysis, there were there main statements from students to define global warming: (1) Increase of earth temperature, (2) depletion of ozone layer, and (3) greenhouse gas and human activities as the cause of global warming. The result of this research can be used to develop the teaching method which can motivate the students' scientific thinking.