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

Year 2018, Issue: 13, 79 - 94, 25.01.2018

Şahin İdin

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

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