“Engineer” Perception in Early Childhood

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the “engineer” perception of 48-72 month-old children in pre-school education. Phenomenological design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the study. The study group of the research consist of 52 children between the ages of 48 and 72 months attending pre-school at one private and one official kindergarten in Niğde province, Turkiye. The semi-structured interview form for determining children’s perception of engineer, based on children’s drawings of engineers at work, which was developed by the researcher, was used. Content analysis has been used in the analysis of data. The result suggested that the majority of the children have an insufficient perception of engineers and their work. Most of the children who want to be an engineer when they grow up do not know why they want to be an engineer, and the reasons for others vary according to their knowledge about engineering. On the other hand, children who want to be engineers when they grow up mostly want to do construction work such as house/ building. The children were most curious about the work engineers do. Most children professions that they encounter in daily life such as police, teacher and doctor. Most children who exhibited a perception of an engineer perceived an engineer as a civil engineer and as a male.