The Metaphors of Middle School Students Regarding “The Teacher” Concept

The aim of this research is to classify the metaphors of m？ddle school students regarding “the teacher” concept under some categories and to reveal the perception of them in accordance with their grade level. The student-teacher relationship is important in both academic and social development of students. The roles that teachers and students attribute each other can be significant in terms of their roles. It is also significant to investigate the perception of students through determining metaphors of students regarding the concept of “the teacher” especially for the educators. The results of the study were obtained from 25 fifth grade, 22 sixth grade, 20 seventh grade and 24 eighth grade students summing up 91 middle school students in public secondary school in Samsun province. In this study which was prepared by metaphor method as a qualitative research, participant students were asked to fill written semi-structured forms as "teacher as/like............. because ...........” and the raw data obtained from this constituted the fundamental data source of the research. In the analysis and interpretation of the data, content analysis method was used from qualitative data analysis techniques. According to the findings obtained, 91 middle school students developed a total of 38 valid metaphors. These metaphors were then examined in terms of their common characteristics and examined under six different conceptual categories