A Large-Scale Examination of Elementary and Secondary School Students’ Metaphors Pertaining School Phenomenon

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to reveal the experiences and conceptions of the students who had been subjected to the schooling system. In addition to the research in the related literature, both qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted in the study, and a complete picture was tried to be presented. The participants of the study were 1782 elementary and secondary school students. In this study, the participants’ experience patterns and abstractions were obtained by operating a relational survey approach by capturing their metaphoric reasoning. Qualitative analysis resulted in 17 (e.g., place of love and confidence, the centre of control and discipline, unsafety and unnecessary place, the field of development and maturation, knowledge transfer centre, the centre of cognitive and practical apprenticeship, the centre of selection) themes reflecting schooling perceptions of the students gathered under four higher-order thematic categories (positive attitudes, negative attitudes, epistemic underpinnings and productivity). Quantitative analyses confirmed that the participants emphasized that the school-led mental images incorporated the affective characteristics and elements (positive attitudes, negative attitudes). However, it was observed that there were very few proportions devoted to school perceptions with regards to epistemic underpinnings and product categories, including pedagogical and cognitive sub-elements. As a significant outcome, it was observed that the positive perceptions of the participants were significantly displaced by the negative ones from the first grade to the end of the secondary education level. Various educational suggestions were made in light of the study outcomes.