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Exploring 12th-grade students’ perceptions of radioactivity and radiation, and the relationship with their creative comparisons

In this study, how high school students (HSSs) perceive radioactivity and radiation was explored. Further, it was of interest to identify the relationship between these HSSs’ perceptions and their creative comparisons about them. Based on a phenomenological research method, this study was conducted with 32 12th grade students attending a high school in Turkey. Two data collection instruments contain two type questions, the description questions and the creative comparison questions were administered separately. In the first question, the students were asked to describe the radioactivity/radiation to determine the students’ perceptions and the phenomenographic analysis was followed to explore students’ perception. In the creative comparison questions, the students were asked to complete the sentences about the concepts radioactivity and radiation such as radiation is like ………. because…….. Content analysis techniques were employed in the analysis of creative comparisons. It was revealed that the HSSs thought about radioactivity/radiation in qualitatively different ways depending on their experiences of phenomena. The HSSs’ perceptions of radioactivity were grouped into three issues coded as “1” decomposition, “2” instability and “3” ray. Their perceptions of radiation were also grouped into four issues coded as “1” ray, “2” energy, “3” matter and “4” wave. The analysis of the data exposed that the students’ creative comparisons about radioactivity and radiation based on the harmful effects of them.