Are Animals ‘More Alive’ than Plants? Animistic-Anthropocentric Construction of Life Concept

Nurettin Yorek; Mehmet Şahin; Halil Aydın

doi:10.12973/ejmste/75287

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Nurettin Yorek ¹ ^* , Mehmet Şahin ¹, Halil Aydın ¹

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¹ Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, TURKIYE^* Corresponding Author

Abstract

This study investigated the characteristics students use in attributing value to and classifying the living things; the relational construction of the life concepts and the living things and the place of human in this construction. Participants were first-year high school students from seven schools in Izmir (a large western city in Turkey). An open-ended conceptual understanding test was developed and administered to students. Semistructured interview forms were applied to students and biology teachers, one from each school; and this provided additional data to clarify ambiguous points in students’ responses to the conceptual test. Results revealed that students constructed the life concept by associating it predominantly with ‘human’. The most frequently associated concept to the life concept was found to be motion. Students tended to use their own classification criteria instead of biological classification. Generally, we noticed classifications in the form of ‘human-animal-plant’

Keywords

life concept
living things
classification
anthropocentrism
animism

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, 2009, Volume 5, Issue 4, 369-378

https://doi.org/10.12973/ejmste/75287

Publication date: 22 Dec 2009

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How to cite this article

APA

Yorek, N., Şahin, M., & Aydın, H. (2009). Are Animals ‘More Alive’ than Plants? Animistic-Anthropocentric Construction of Life Concept. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 5(4), 369-378. https://doi.org/10.12973/ejmste/75287

Vancouver

Yorek N, Şahin M, Aydın H. Are Animals ‘More Alive’ than Plants? Animistic-Anthropocentric Construction of Life Concept. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2009;5(4):369-78. https://doi.org/10.12973/ejmste/75287

AMA

Yorek N, Şahin M, Aydın H. Are Animals ‘More Alive’ than Plants? Animistic-Anthropocentric Construction of Life Concept. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2009;5(4), 369-378. https://doi.org/10.12973/ejmste/75287

Chicago

Yorek, Nurettin, Mehmet Şahin, and Halil Aydın. "Are Animals ‘More Alive’ than Plants? Animistic-Anthropocentric Construction of Life Concept". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education 2009 5 no. 4 (2009): 369-378. https://doi.org/10.12973/ejmste/75287

Harvard

Yorek, N., Şahin, M., and Aydın, H. (2009). Are Animals ‘More Alive’ than Plants? Animistic-Anthropocentric Construction of Life Concept. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 5(4), pp. 369-378. https://doi.org/10.12973/ejmste/75287

MLA

Yorek, Nurettin et al. "Are Animals ‘More Alive’ than Plants? Animistic-Anthropocentric Construction of Life Concept". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, vol. 5, no. 4, 2009, pp. 369-378. https://doi.org/10.12973/ejmste/75287