Primary School Students’ Metaphorical Perceptions of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence has an important place in education as one of the most intriguing areas of today’s technology. How primary school students perceive and interpret this advanced technology is of great importance for the future of educational processes. In this study, it was aimed to reveal the metaphorical perceptions of primary school students about artificial intelligence. The study was conducted with a phenomenological design and the study group consisted of 364 third and fourth grade students selected by criterion sampling. Content analysis was used to analyze the metaphors. According to the results of the research, it was determined that students developed a total of 377 metaphors under 53 different metaphor types for artificial intelligence. The most frequently repeated metaphors were “human, robot, brain, teacher, friend, telephone and computer.” It was determined that there was no significant difference in terms of gender or class level according to the themes and categories determined according to the metaphors created. In line with the results of the research, the use of artificial intelligence metaphors in educational materials can support students to better understand the concept of artificial intelligence and improve their perceptions of technology.