Descriptive Content Analysis of Research on Cognitive Structures in Science Education in Turkey

In this study, the trends of cognitive structure researches published in the field of science education in Turkey were identified. A descriptive analysis of 156 studies (113 articles, 34 postgraduate theses and 9 proceeding papers) published between 2003 and 2023 was carried out using document analysis method. These studies were accessed from the National Thesis Centre of the Council of Higher Education, articles published by Turkish researchers searched in national and international databases, and proceedings of national congresses/conferences/symposiums held in Turkey. In order to evaluate the studies, the publication classification form prepared for the subject area by making use of the literature was used. With this form, the distribution of the studies according to year, language of publication, place of publication, type of publication, subject of the study, research model, sample, research method, data analysis, results and recommendations were determined. Descriptive statistics and descriptive content analysis were used to present the analysis's findings. In this study, it was seen that many studies were conducted on cognitive structures in science education and these studies were concentrated between 2017-2020. It was determined that the studies mostly aimed to determine the cognitive structures of individuals with a subject, mostly qualitative research method was used and mostly Word Association Test (WAT) was used as a data collection tool. The most common conclusions drawn from the investigations were that the sample's cognitive structures were lacking and that they had misconceptions regarding the topic.