Artificial intelligence in science education in Türkiye: Thematic content analysis of graduate theses

Artificial intelligence offers the opportunity to experience changes and transformations in the field of education with the rapid development of technology. One of these opportunities is to facilitate the work of both students and educators such as personalising learning processes, providing innovative and modern teaching methods, monitoring and analysing student performance. From this point of view, the main purpose of this research is to find out the general information (type of publication, year of publication, university of study and keywords used, etc.) about the postgraduate thesis studies on the use of artificial intelligence in science education; how the subject distribution is; what are the aims, methodological tendencies (research method, research design, data collection tools, data analysis methods, etc.); results and recommendations of the studies. The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive overview of the results and recommendations of the studies and to analyse the data obtained from 28 thesis studies obtained from YÖK National Thesis Centre (YÖKTEZ) by thematic content analysis method. As a result of the analysis, it was determined that the postgraduate theses on artificial intelligence in science education started in 2015 and the most publications were made in 2024; the effect on academic achievement was mostly examined and it positively affected interest, perception, motivation and attitudes; Gazi University had the most publications; the most common topics were AI-supported science education and artificial intelligence keywords; survey method was mostly used in quantitative research methods; achievement tests were mostly used as data collection tools and descriptive statistical methods were mostly used to analyse the data. In addition, when the results of the postgraduate thesis studies were examined, it was found that it positively affected achievement, attitude, etc., contributed to skill development and created awareness; when the suggestions were examined, it was suggested to expand the study group, to examine various variables and skills, to use AI in education and to provide in-service and pre-service training on this subject, to integrate and update AI into the education curriculum, to diversify course materials with AI and to make activities.