Preschool Children’s Perceptions of Street
Articles > Article · 2020
Authors: Ayşe GÜLER, Esra Betul KOLEMEN
International Online Journal of Educational Sciences, International, 2020, vol 12
DOI: 10.15345/iojes.2020.04.016
Summary
Massive and dense housing, rapid decrease in open spaces, increase in vehicles and traffic due to rapid urbanization, make urban areas so risky for children.Urban areas cannot fulfill children's needs and expectations and offer safe environments for them.The aim of this study is to gather children's views about streets and realize a street design based on their views.This study is carried out as a phenomenology study of a qualitative research design.Phenomenology is a qualitative research design to identify experiences and related themes that are examined thoroughly with various data gathering tools.Study group was composed of 60--71 month old 24 children chosen from an independent preschool of the Ministry of National Education in Hendek,district of Sakarya, by using a simple random sampling method of the Probability Sampling method.Data were collected by using a four dimensioned interview protocol developed by Vosniadou and Brewer (1992) and Vosniadou, Skopeliti and Ikospentaki (2004--2005).These dimensions are listed as follows; a) verbal explanation that contains 3 questions to establish children's cognitive skill models about their street perceptions, b) to draw a street picture, c) to form a conceptual network related to their street perceptions and d) to form a street design by using this conceptual network ."Personal information forms" prepared by researchers are used in order to specify work group's general features.In the third and fourth dimension a street model is formed by analysing the data collected in the first two levels.Study data were analyzed with the help of content analysis.As a result, data collected in all dimensions showed that the street consists of 5 dimensions through children's eyes that contains 1) climate-sky, 2) structures, 3) all living creatures, 4) actions and 5) vehicles.