Becoming the Ideal Teacher in the Eyes of Middle School Students: An Arts-Based Research

The study aimed to examine middle school students' perceptions of the ideal teacher using an arts-based approach. A qualitative method was employed, utilizing an arts-based research design. The study group consisted of a total of 28 middle school students, including 17 female and 11 male students, in grades 7 and 8 from five different secondary schools from the provinces of Adıyaman, Bitlis, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep, and Malatya. Simple random sampling was used to select the secondary schools included in the study, while criterion sampling was used to select the relevant classes in the secondary schools. Data were collected through an open-ended form and analysed using document analysis. Content analysis (inductive) was applied to analyze the data. In the analysis of written statements, the codes were generated under four categories: “Physical Characteristics”, “Emotional Characteristics”, “Professional Characteristics” and “Ethical Characteristics”, under the theme of “Teacher Characteristics”. In the analysis of the drawings, a guide was developed by the researchers to evaluate the drawings, and the sample drawings that best reflected the guide criteria were evaluated under the relevant categories derived from the written explanations. It was concluded that middle school students clearly reflected their perceptions of the ideal teacher through both their drawings and the written explanations accompanying the drawings.