Teachers` opinions about the influence of social studies course on the students` thinking skills

In the present study, which was done to determine to what extent the SocialStudies course helps the students acquire the thinking skills, scanning model was used.The opinions and suggestions of Social Studies teachers were presented.The research was conducted at the primary schools in Eskişehir and `AQuestionaire About the Influence of Social Studies Course on the Students? ThinkingSkills?, which has 4 parts and 60 questions, was applied to 134 Social Studies teachersand was used as a data collection instrument.In the analysis phase of the data, teachers? opinions were presented in numbers,percentages and aritmetic means.As a result of the statistical analyses, the following results were obtained in thepresent study:The teachers who participated in the research believe that Social Studies•course partly help the students acquire the critical thinking, problem solvingand decision making skills.Among the factors influencing the students? not acquiring the thinking skills•well enough in the Social Studies course, teahers find `the difficulty ofproviding the students with enough opportunities and environment for themto acquire the thinking skills in Social Studies course? and `theinconsistency between what they learn at school and out of school? the mostinfluential.Teachers believe that Social Studies course, in terms of acquiring the•thinking skills, is an effective, suitable and ideal course; however, there aresome insufficiencies due to the program and the present education systemwhich is based on memorizing. Social studies teachers prefer to give researchassignments to students for them to acquire the thinking skills.