Thematic Content Analysis for Pre-School Science Education Research Areas in Turkey

The purpose of this research is to examine the various variables in terms of master dissertations, doctoral dissertations, and articles made in the field of science education in pre-school between the years 2014 and 2019 in Turkey. The present study is a qualitative research. In this study, thematic content analysis was used. After the articles deriving from the dissertations were extracted, a total of 129 publications including 14 doctoral dissertations, 38 master dissertations and 77 articles were reached. At the end of the research, it is seen that most of the postgraduate theses were published in Gazi University and the most articles were published in The Journal of International Social Research. When the distribution of the studies according to the aims of the studies is examined, it is seen that determination studies produced the highest effect while the quantitative studies were conducted at most, considering the research methods. While participant groups mostly involved the students, the scale and interviews were preferred as data collection tools. In accordance with these results, suggestions were made to the researchers who would work on this subject. doctoral theses were obtained from the National thesis center database of the Board of Higher Education and the articles were obtained from the journals published in Turkey and scanned in the database of Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Ulakbim National Social Sciences Database, and Google Scholar. During the process of scanning, the following were used: “preschool preschool science activities, preschool science and Nature, Science and nature activities, science and Nature Education, Early Childhood Education, Environmental Education, Science Education in pre-school”.


Introduction
The development and self-renewal of knowledge day by day triggers societies to raise qualified individuals who keep up with this development. Particular emphasis is placed on science education which enables individuals to produce solutions to the problems they encounter in daily life and apply scientific process skills in addition to the knowledge they have acquired during the education process. Researchers working in this field suggest that science education should be included in all stages of education from pre-school (Çakmak, 2006).
Science is an indispensable part of our daily life. It is very important because planting, to observe the germination of seeds, to think about why the boat does not sink in water, to observe that some animals fly while others live in water, to know that the day and 2016). In this case, investigations and meta-synthesis studies provide guidance for researchers. When national databases are examined, it is seen that many studies have been conducted in many areas in early childhood (Kaytez & Durualp, 2014;Can-Yaşar & Aral, 2011). Similar studies were conducted in the field of science education in pre-school (Gülay Ogelman & Güngör, 2015;Ertürk-Kara & Aydın-Şengül, 2016;Özen-Uyar & Ormancı, 2016;Avar & Ilıcan, 2018;Güneş, 2018). However, the study covering the last six years is not included in the literature. In addition, the studies conducted in recent years have dealt with either theses or articles only. There is no study in the literature examining theses and articles related to pre-school science education together. The purpose of this research is to examine the various variables in terms of master dissertations, doctoral dissertations, and articles made in the field of science education in pre-school between the years 2014 and 2019 in Turkey. For this purpose, the following research questions were tried to be answered: 1. What is the distribution of external appearance characteristics of the research? (type of publication, year of publication, place of publication, area of master study of the author) 2. What are the aims of the research?
3. What methods have the research been done? 4. What is the distribution of the participants of the research? 5. What is the distribution of research data collection tools? 6. What is the distribution of methods and techniques used in researches?
What is the distribution of research topics?

Methodology
This study is a qualitative research which examined the studies carried out in the field of pre-school science education in Turkey between the years 2014 and 2019. Thematic content analysis (meta-synthesis), one of the content analysis types, was used in the current research. Thematic content analysis involves creating, synthesizing, and interpreting the themes or parameters of researches conducted in the same field and in the same subject (Au, 2007;Çalık & Sözbilir, 2014).

Data Collection
This study consists of master's theses, doctoral theses, and articles in the field of Science Education in preschool period. In the process of data collection, Master's and

Finding and Discussion
In this section, the master theses, doctoral theses, and articles were examined within the scope of the research are presented in tables with the help of codes and themes.        (2016)   Accordig to Table 5, the most articles were published in the field of Science.

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in the field of preschool education (55,81%, f = 72). In the second place, researchers in the field of science education (17,83%, f = 23) are seen. It is noteworthy that the fields of education of the authors vary especially in the type of articles. It is seen that 57,90% (f = 22) of the master's theses made in this field are in the field of pre-school education and 18,42% (f = 7) were in the field of science education. As in the other two types of dissertations, the highest number of studies was made in the field of preschool education (71,43%, f = 10). The rate of researches in the field of science education in the dissertation was 21,43% (f = 3). As a result, it is seen that while researchers did not go too far out of the field in the thesis studies, researchers from various fields prefer article science education in preschool period. In particular, it is observed that chemistry educators from the lower branches of Science gave importance to pre-school science education research. * Because there are more than one purpose in some of the studies, the number of objectives in Table 7 outweighs the number of studies.

Findings on Content Characteristics of Research
As for It may also be preferred as data collection is faster in such studies (Takaoğlu & Demir, 2018).
Another point that draws attention to the situation determination studies is that the majority of the studies include subjects such as self-efficacy beliefs related to the application of science activities, attitudes towards science teaching, and examination of conceptual knowledge.
This may be due to the fact that preschool teachers do not have many lessons in their curriculum during their education; therefore, it is thought that they are lacking in this subject  The methods of the studies examined are given in  Table 9 shows that 54,54% (f=24) students were studied as a participant group and then teachers (25%, f=11) were studied. In doctoral theses, 68,42% (f=13) were studied with students. According to the articles examined, 39,02% (f=32) teachers and 23,17% (f=19) teacher candidates were identified as participants. The results here are consistent with the preferred methods. More experimental methods were preferred in doctoral theses. In other words, since the effects of the applied method/technique on the student are investigated, it is natural that the ratio of participants to the group was high in the doctoral theses of the students. Further survey studies and qualitative studies were also carried out in the articles.
This type of study is thought to be preferred because it is easier to collect data from teachers and prospective teachers. Similar results are reached in the study of Ahi and Kildan (2013) which examines postgraduate theses for pre-school education. In contrast to the aforementioned results, the study of Özen Uyar and Ormancı,(2016) on Science Education articles in preschool period concludes that more students are working with.   Güneş, 2018). This may be due to the emphasis on mixed and qualitative studies in recent years.

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In addition, the innovations can be adapted to the studies in our country by following the studies in the related field summer abroad.
Studies show that the attitudes of teachers and prospective teachers towards science education are good; however, they have difficulty in implementing activities and implementing new techniques. In-service training courses or BAP, TUBITAK-supported projects can be developed to address the deficiencies of teachers and teacher candidates.
The measurement and evaluation tools that are used are usually scales due to the fact that the majority of the studies are case studies. However, studies can be conducted where we combine both quantitative and qualitative research using many alternative measurement tools that enable us to investigate the subject in depth.
In the examination of studies conducted in science education in preschool period, it is seen that the authors of the studies show a variety of postgraduate education areas. This is because pre-school science education is an area that has been studied in recent years. For this reason, it contains many areas to be studied and explored. These areas should be uncovered. Okul öncesi öğretmen adaylarının fen eğitimine yönelik öz yeterlikleri başarı amaç oryantasyonları ve öğrenme yaklaşımları arasındaki ilişkinin incelenmesi.