Abstract:

In recent years, research on mental models associated with the various concepts and phenomena of individuals are widespread. Especially, uncover mental models of small children, see how perceive life have vital importance in terms of planning formal and informal learning processes in their future lives. Due to the popularization of divorce in society or a variety of reasons such as industrialization and immigration, various family models such as ecological family, nuclear family, single parent family or virtual family emerged and Turkish family structure is directly affected by this change. So, knowing the mental model of pre-school studens that is created on the concept of family and starting from immediate environment is very important.

The aim of this study is to uncover to the mental model that is related to family concept of pre-school studens. The study group of the research has consisted of 320 children continuing their educations in the pre-school education in the city of Kastamonu in Turkey. The study group was selected with the purposive sampling, and it contained 5-6 age group children. This research was conducted as a descriptive study. Via picture drawing, it is possible to define the perception oriented for the inner world of the children within a visual structure and to determine their real thoughts (Coates, 2002; Einnarsdottir et al., 2009; Leonard, 2006; Piperno et al., 2007). From this point, the perception of the studens regarding the concepts of their family was determined by using the picture drawing technique. Therefore, the mental models revealed in the content of the study were limited with the participants’ drawings. In the process of the analysis of the data, the categorization of the characteristics of the family figures taking place in the pictures of the students has been utilized. Also during the data collection process, researchers requested to explain their photos from each child. The research process that is related to whether change of determined mental models according to gender and age of the studens is going on and the results will be shared in full text of the survey.

Keywords:

mental model,pre-school students, family concepts