The Challenges of Refugee Students Encountered in Science Courses: A Phenomenological Study

Authors : Şahin Idin

Pages : 79-94

View : 17 | Download : 8

Publication Date : 2018-01-25

Article Type : Research

Abstract :         In recent years, because of some factors such as, wars and unemployment, refugee and migrant people population have been increasing in Turkey. The aim of this study is to investigate the factors effect refugee students’ learning process within the scope of science course. It was focused on to gain the data deeply, which were taken from the refugee students within science course to understand the reason of failure in science. This study was conducted in a middle school, which is located in Ankara, and was carried out with middle school students, whose ages are from 11 to 14 years old. The study was conducted with seven refugee students in 2016-2017 education fall term, for six months. In this study, qualitative method was used, within this scope this study is a phenomenological study. To collect data of the study, interviews, observations and document analyse techniques were used. A triangulation was provided to vary the data of the study. Content analysis and descriptive analysis techniques were used to obtain of the results of the study. It has been understood from the observations that students could not understand science teachers’ statements while they were in science lesson. Science teachers stated the reasons of students’ failure in science that students do not know Turkish well (20%), they do not belong themselves to Turkey (20%), economic conditions (13,33%) and negative school climate (13,33%). Students pointed out some factors of their failure in science that they are language problems (11,66%), their family can not help to them within science course (11,66%) and so on. It can be recommended taking additional science courses after school will be more useful for refugee students in terms of effective learning science.
Keywords : phenomenological, refugee students, science course