An investigation of the predictors that affect first-grade students school adaptation and social competence levels

In this study, the predictors affecting the elementary school first grade students' level of school adaptation and social competence were examined. The research was carried out based on descriptive survey model. The study group of the research consists of 179 primary school students, 79 of whom are girls and 100 of them are males, who were educated in primary schools in the province of Kilis in the 2019-2020 academic year and observed to have difficulty in adapting to the school as observed by the classroom teacher. The Personal Information Form prepared by the researcher, Scale of Social Competence and School Adjustment developed by Walker and McConnell (1995) and adapted to Turkish by Uz Baş (2003) were used to collect data in the study. The variables obtained from the scale of teacher-preferred social behavior, peer-preferred social behavior and school adaptation behavior subscales and gender, pre-school education, family's cooperation with teacher and trauma experience were included in the analysis. The data were analyzed in SPSS 24.0 package program. As a result of the research; the variables of family collaboration with the teacher and whether the child had trauma experience or not are significant predictors of peer preferential behavior; however, variables of gender and pre-school education are not significant predictors of peer-preferred behavior; the family's cooperation with the teacher variable is a significant predictor of teacher preferential behavior, but whether there is trauma experience, and variables of gender and pre-school education are not significant predictors of peer preferential behavior; It was observed that the family's cooperation with the teacher and gender variables were significant predictors of the level of school adaptation, but whether they had experience of trauma and the pre-school education status variables were not significant predictors.