An Analysis of University Students’ Perceptions of the Concepts of “Water” and “Water Pollution” through Metaphors

Abstract

This study aimed to determine university students' perceptions concerning the concepts of "water" and "water pollution" by means of metaphors. The study group was composed of 258 undergraduate students attending Hacettepe and Gazi Universities in the 2015-2016 academic year. A semi-structured questionnaire containing the statement "water/water pollution is like……. because ……" was administered to the participants. The technique of content analysis was employed in analysing the data, for which the MAXQDA 12 software programme was used. Results showed that the students perceived the concept of water as a need and an indispensable part of life, while they perceived the concept of water pollution as the end of life.

Üni̇versi̇te Öğrenci̇leri̇ni̇n “Toprak Ve Toprak Ki̇rli̇li̇ği̇” Kavramlarina İli̇şki̇n Algilarinin Metafor İle Anali̇zi̇

“…The findings of the study were evaluated in two conceptual categories related to the concept of air and three conceptual categories related to the concept of air pollution. Köseoğlu (2017) studies university students' perceptions concerning the concepts of "water" and "water pollution" by means of metaphors. According to the findings of the study were evaluated in 4 conceptual categories related to water concept and 3 conceptual categories related to water pollution.…”

Perceptions of Teachers in Training on Water Issues and Their Relationship to the SDGs

“…That is affecting our health and access to food, in addition to having a negative impact on marine living beings; in contrast to other studies, students are concerned about marine biodiversity and its consequences [1]. Some of the aforementioned behaviours and impacts have been identified in other studies [50,57,[59][60][61][62][63][64], although the number of research studies focusing on students, or other types of population, is limited. Unlike other studies [78], this work argues that students are not superficial, though their knowledge and perception of this situation could be improved.…”

“…There are few studies in the scientific literature addressing the perception of university students, as they usually deal with climate change and water [57], water reuse [50], the perception of the management of water resources [59], water consumption habits [60][61][62], the perception of the concept of water and its pollution [63], the attitude towards saving water [64] or the awareness of water pollution caused by dairy products waste [65]. Such studies are even scarcer when considering student teachers [57] and, in general, indicate a superficial knowledge about the problem under study [65].…”

Öğretmen Adaylarının “Su Kirliliği” Kavramına Yönelik Metaforik Algılarının Veri Çeşitlemesi Yoluyla Belirlenmesi

“…Su kirliliği konusunu tema olarak alan çalışmalar incelendiğinde genel olarak; Avrupa Birliği (AB) uyum süreci ve su politikası (Afroz, Masud, Akhtar & Duasa, 2014), ekosistemde su kirliliği (Özdemir & Uçar, 2006;Kılıç, 2008;Floqi, Trajçe & Vezi, 2009;Törnqvist, Jarsjö & Karimov, 2011;Sevik, 2011;Chou, 2013;İkikat-Tümer, 2017;Arıman & Koyuncu, 2019), akarsu kirliliği (Toroğlu, Toroğlu & Alaeddinoğlu, 2006;Kozaki ve ark., 2016), bilinçli su tüketimi davranışı (Alaş, Tunç, Kışoğlu & Gürbüz, 2009;Yıldız-Fevzioğlu, Akpınar, Ünal-Çoban, Capellaro & Ergin, 2010), su ayak izinin belirlenmesi (Dursun, 2019;Aldaya ve ark., 2020), su 1504 kalitesinin belirlenmesi ve çeşitli kimyasal değişkenler açısından incelenmesi (Ünlü, Çoban & Tunç, 2008;Sönmez, Hisar & Yanık, 2012;Aşıkkutlu, Akköz & Yılmaz-Öztürk, 2014;Topal & Arslan-Topal, 2015;Birici ve ark., 2017;Dorak, Aşık & Özsoy, 2019;Erkmen, Kavcı & Adıgüzel, 2019;Osmani ve ark., 2019), çevre eğitimi ve su kirliliği (Kariper, 2014;Bozdemir & Faiz, 2018), çevresel sürdürülebilirlik (Menteşe, 2017;, çevre sorunları ve su kirliliğine yönelik algılar ve bilişsel yapılar (Seçgin, Yalvaç & Çetin, 2010;Köseoğlu, 2017;Özcan & Demirel, 2019), su okuryazarlığı (Dinç, 2018;Ursavaş & Aytar, 2018), su güvenliği (Ertaş & Sarımehmetoğlu, 2019), suların stratejik, etik ve hukuki boyutlarının incelenmesi (Howarth, 2000;Howarth & McGillivray, 2002;…”