Primary and Secondary School Teachers’ Knowledge and Misconceptions about the Brain in Turkey

摘要

Neuroscience adds a new perspective to the field of education. However, it is challenging to bridge the gap between those deeply-rooted fields. Historically, the gap has generated certain neuromyths and these can be quite damaging. In order to prevent this situation, teachers should be sufficiently informed. Thus, there are some efforts in some countries to prevent the spread of neuromyths, such as UK, Netherlands, Brazil, US, Greece, Portuguese etc. However there have been no studies in Turkey. The present study took a two-stage mixed-methods approach to explore primary and secondary school teachers’ concepts about the brain in Turkey and to identify potential sources of misconceptions. 278 primary and secondary school teachers were surveyed and 6 of them were interviewed for in depth responses. Analyses revealed that teachers held many misconceptions about concepts related to brain that have been observed elsewhere in Europe. On the other hand the comparison between Turkey, UK and Netherlands revealed some interesting differences. For instance the conceptions about the neuromyths on second language learning and plasticity were differentiated between countries. This could show the differences between cultures. There is a need to do distinctive scientific research in Turkey as well.