The assessment on classroom management skills of primary school teachers: A case study of Afyonkarahisar

The aim of this study is to determine the level of classroom management skills of the primary school teachers according to the views of teachers, teacher candidates and observers. This research that aimed at determining the level of classroom management skills of the primary school teachers, is a descriptive survey model study. The research population consists of a total of 543 primary school teachers who works in 49 primary schools (2 of them are private and 47 of them are state schools) in the centre of Afyonkarahisar in the academic year of 2011-2012. After developing questionnare to 151 teachers out of 543 primary school teachers, preliminary implementation was applied. The basic questionnaire were applied the rest of the primary school teachers (392 in total). Since it is possible to reach the whole population, sample was not taken. In addition, 200 primary school teacher candidates who are studying their third and final year at Afyon Kocatepe University, Faculty of Education were included in the population of the study. Both quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques were employed while collecting the data. In the study, two different data collection tools were used. The first one of these tools is Classroom Management Teacher Questionaire that was for determining classroom management skills of the primary school teachers and it was designed by the researcher. The second data collection tool is Teacher Observation Form which was for presenting classroom management skills of the teachers and it was prepared by the researcher The questionnaire includes 6 sub-dimensions and 46 classroom management behaviour statements, and the observation form consists of 6 sub-dimensions and 20 classroom management behaviour statements. The research data were obtained both by applying the questionnaire to the primary school teachers working at primary schools and the teacher candidates who study in the department of primary education at Afyon Kocatepe University; and also through observation of primary school teachers by the researcher. The data obtained from this study were analyzed by using SPSS 15.0 for Windows. Arithmetic mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage were used while analysing the data. In addition to this, Mann-Whitney U Test of non-parametric tests were used for the groups of two and for more than two groups Kruskal - Wallis H Test was used. Also, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used for the qualitative analysis of the data. According to the views of teachers and teacher candidates, in terms of the level of classroom management skills, it has been concluded that the sub-dimension that teachers have the highest average is Communication, but by the results of the observation that is Time Management sub-dimension. With respect to the views of teachers and teacher candidates and observers, the sub-dimension that teachers have the lowest average is Physical Layout of the Classroom. When classroom management skills were evaluated as a whole, in terms of teachers and observation results, the level of classroom management skills of the primary school teachers is Always but in terms of teacher candidates the level is Sometimes. It has been found that whereas the level of classroom management skills of primary school teachers display a significant difference according to gender, their seniority and grade level they teach; there is no significant difference according to their graduate school or classroom size. Key words: Primary School Teachers, Classroom Management, Classroom Management Skill.