The postgraduate students’ (masters, PhD) metaphors about education of statistic

¹ Kocaeli University, School of Physical Education and Sport, Department of Sports Management, Kocaeli, Turkey
² Kocaeli University, School of Medicine, Department of Anatomy, Kocaeli, Turkey
³ Kocaeli University, School of Physical Education and Sport, Department of Recreation, Kocaeli, Turkey
⁴ Kocaeli University, School of Physical Education and Sport, Department of Trainer Education, Kocaeli, Turkey

^a Corresponding author: srpclk@gmail.com

Abstract

Statistics is an important part of our life when it comes to economy, education, sport, politics and research. Research is a primary job for the ones pursuing academic career and statistics is one of the basic components of a research. Metaphor is used as an equivalent to figurative expression (‘mecaz’ in Turkish language). Study group is composed of 19 females (age 27.7) and 40 males (age 30.85) - 59 students in total. Demographic information of participants was collected. Participants were provided with questionnaire in order to assess their metaphorical creation whereby they were asked to fill in the sentence - “statistics is like/ similar to …, because…” - with metaphor. The study has collected total of 59 metaphors in 6 categories. The most created metaphor is in ‘discovering/ revealing’ category. 42.5% of Master’s students and 25% of PhD students are in this category. Metaphors created by graduate students are representing their views about statistics course and hence their view about importance of research. The category ‘discovering/ revealing’, the one with the most created metaphor of this study, is the main concept of science. Consequently, good knowledge of statistics is needed for graduate students to conduct research.