The perception of the European union in the mind map of students having education in Turkey

Every individual can code natural and human facts in to an empty paper with the geography education but quality and quantity of geopgraphic details differ greatly from person to person. From this point of view, mind maps are giving important clues about how individuals think differently about the same areas and places. The purpose of this research is to determine the EU perception in the minds of Turkish and foreign college students and the factors which affect this perception. Descriptive scanning method was used in this research which intends to appreciate the EU perception. Scanning patterns is the research approach which intend to depict an existing or former situation. Undergraduate students who studied in state and foundation universities in 2010-2011 school year in Ankara form the system of this research. 286 Turkish, 228 foreign, 514 in total undergraduate students from these universities which were chosen randomly form the sample of the research. In the research, survey was used as data collection tool to measure the European Union perception in the mind map of the participators. The students were asked to show the member and candidate countries of European Union. Participants' scores were obtained by giving 1 point for each accurate country they showed on the map. The datas were transferred to a computer by using SPSS 15.0 package program. In the analysis of the datas, frequency, arithmetic average value was used, t-Test and simplex variance analysis (ANOVA) technics were applied. ?=.05 level of significance was used in interpretation and analysis of datas. According to research evidences EU perception percentage points of college students differ in genger, ethnicity, faculties they are studying but the effect of where college students live and age are similar on the points of EU perception. The college students who participate in the research generally follow history, politics, art, health and sports editions while environment, economy and other editions are being followed less.