THE PERCEPTIONS OF MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS ABOUT ENGINEER AND ENGINEERING

The aim of this study is to reveal how students in secondary school perceive engineer and engineering. The study was carried out in the 2017-2018 education year with the secondary schools 5, 6, 7 and 8th grade students (N= 672) in the Alanya district of Antalya. A mixed model, in which a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods was used in the present study. As a data collection tools, “Draw an Engineer Test (DAET), What is Engineering? and What is the Importance for Engineering? was used. According to the findings, the students perceive engineering as inventing and designing, making life easier, and according to the results of the drawing, they perceive the engineer as the male profession and they perceive them as people working in construction or road construction in outdoor area. It is determined that the students do not have sufficient knowledge about engineering diversity and most of the students drew civil engineering and computer engineer. In addition, it was concluded that the use of mathematics for engineering was very important