Development of a Context-Based Comic Book for the Electricity Transmission Unit: Teacher and Student Perspectives

Abstract

This study aims to develop a context-based comic book for the “Electricity Transmission” unit and explore the perspectives of students and teachers regarding the use of this instructional material. Employing a phenomenological approach, the study gathered context suggestions from 178 science teachers across Türkiye to ensure the nationwide applicability of the comic book. The context-based comic book was implemented as instructional material with 27 sixthgrade students over three weeks. Following the implementation, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the course teacher and 12 students, and the data were analyzed using content analysis. As a result of the data analysis, the following themes emerged: “academic contribution,” “first associations,” “humorous elements,” “relevance to daily life,” “desire to use in other subjects or topics,” “stimulation of curiosity and excitement,” “appreciation of the overall structure and illustrations of the comic book,” and “advantages over the textbook.” Recommendations were provided for using the context-based comic book, which is presented as an original alternative instructional material in the literature, specifically for teaching the Electricity Transmission unit.