Background (Introduction)
The countries in the world make various studies at their educational association about the concept of education
which can be developed, renovated and operated. So it must be the biggest objective of our educational system
to educate modern, productive responsible, qualified and educated people who also take side of solutions
instead of problems. It clear that students’ misconceptions about basic concepts and not providing good
educational opportunities them at the expected level causes some negative states in transferring the knowledge
and in getting the necessary behaviors. It is seen especially in the science educational research that many
misconceptions both occurred and possibly happen in the educational instruction process. It is also clear that
the misconceptions which may occur in the future will greatly affect the success of the students if we consider
that concepts form the foundation of the topics to be taught. Two of the much used concepts taught during
science education and used in our daily life are heat and temperature. In this way, it appears that the concepts of
heat and temperature must be perceived by the students correctly.
Purpose
What students think about the heat and temperature concepts and how they perceive these concepts seem to
be an important problem that must be investigated by researchers? So the general objective of this study is to
identify the views of students, who are in year 1 and 2 of high schools about heat and temperature concepts and
their learning problems,
Method and Sample
According to the objectives of the undertaken study, open-ended questions and semi-structured interviews
were prepared and applied to learn and evaluate the views of heat and temperature concepts of the students
who are attending to the first and second year of the high schools in city centre, Van. The study investigated
many aspects of these terms under some sub-headings such as the students’ views of the relations of heat and
temperature, the difference between these two terms. Yet during the interviews structured-interview questions
were given to each student as written form to get them understand these questions well. During the study
students were seen in two different contexts (classroom and laboratory). Many aspects of heat and temperature
concepts were explored through the use of interviews and the interview questions of heat and temperature were
taken from the students who are in year 1 and 2 of the high schools and 14 to 16.
In total 240 students were interviewed and some analyzed information is provided about the interviewed
students age differences and classroom levels in the article. During the study the data form the students was
taken in three ways. In the first, a tape-recorder was used to get data during the face to face talk. In so doing the
questions and answers were transcribed and the dialogues which are different from one another were noted. In
the second, the group discussion method was used and the important and different statements uttered by the
students were both noted and tape-recorded. In the final, written questions were used to get data from the
students and the outcomes of the written answers were assessed. While using these types of data collection
tools, some observations were made to facilitate students’ understanding.
Findings
The teaching of heat and temperature concepts begins in year four of the primary schools and these concepts are
among the important topics. Many aspects of these concepts were investigated as follows: the topics of the
relations and differences of these concepts, temperature, the change of temperature, boiling and freezing states,
heat capacity and expansion, the comparison of heat and temperature were interviewed at the classrooms and
laboratories.
 

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