Perceptions about Internet in elementary school children’s drawings

Abstract

Drawing is an intimate way of expression for a child to reflect his/her sense and
feelings, along with his/her perceptions and observations. Children, by displaying their perceptions
about the outer world, give a lot of hints about their inner world. This study was conducted in order to
evaluate elementary school students’ perception of the Internet with the help of their drawings.
Phenomenological design was employed in this study. The study was carried out with fourth grade
students, and their perception of the Internet was analyzed through the pictures they drew, semistructured interviews and their written opinions about the Internet. The participants of the study were
23 elementary school students who were fourth graders at a private school in Eskisehir. Data were
analyzed descriptively. The results of the study have indicated that the students use the Internet for
doing research and playing games; thus, their drawings reflect the same concerns. In their drawings,
students associated the research aspect of the Internet with “Google” research engine. It was also
observed that students consider the Internet as a source of knowledge and there is parallelism among
their written opinions and drawing expressions