The Views of Primary School Students about Radiation

Radiation is a matter in which we come across a lot in our lives and something that students find difficult to understand. The study is intended to investigate opinions and thoughts of secondary school students about radiation issue. In this study, a total of 222 students from 3 different primary schools in Province of Erzurum, Turkey were given a test consisting of 7 open ended questions which was prepared by the researcher. The age range of students participated in the study were 12-15 and 108 of them were female, 114 were male. Data were presented in tables with percentages and frequencies. The findings obtained in this study which was applied by qualitative research methods were analyzed using descriptive analysis method. After the evaluation of the answers given by the students, results of the study led to the following conclusions: that students lack an adequate knowledge of radiation, and because of this, 88% of them are frightened of radiation and they have negative views about radiation since they think it's dangerous and harmful. Students were found to have lack of information on the issues; the effects of radiation, radiation sources and methods of radiation protection. Sources of great trust and accuracy should be used while studying radiation. Radiation is useful but can cause great damage if precautions are not taken. School is the most important institution of obtaining accurate information. Only a small minority of students (17%) said that they obtained the information about radiation from textbooks and teachers. This study suggests that important topics, an example of one such topic is radiation, should be inserted into the educational program and introduced to the students at an early age. We recommend the construction of educational activities that introduce and familiarize students with radiation at specific time periods and suggest methods/techniques that will enable teachers to support these ideas.