Research over the various factors which affect the academic success and shyness levels of social science teacher candidates (Kastamonu case)

The purpose of this study is to identify various factors which affect the success and shyness levels of social sciences teacher candidates. The study includes 329 students who were in their 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th years at the department of teaching social sciences in the first semester of 2013-2014 academic year at the education faculty of Kastamonu University . One scale which consists of two parts has been applied to social sciences teacher candidates. In the first part of the scale there is a Personal Information Form prepared by the researcher and the second part involves a 20-article Shyness Scale (SS) 13 articles of which were developed for the first time by Cheek (1990) and then adapted and improved into Turkish by "Güngör (2001). Moreover, 35 shy and extro-vert teacher cadidates have been interviewed face to face in order to identify the reasons of shyness and its effects to academic and career success. At the end of the study, it has been found that the academic grade point average of the students of Teaching Social Sciences shows considerable changes in terms of gender and where they live during their study years. Students' shyness levels are different in connection with their fathers' occupation status and how well their university expenses are met. According to the study, other factors affecting students' shyness levels are their reasons why they chose to study Teaching Social Sciences and whether they take part in social activities. While no relationship between shyness level and academic grade point average has been found in the study, the assessment of the interviews held with students with a low and high levels of shyness has showed that the shyness level affects academic and career success. Keywords: Social Sciences, Social Sciences Teacher Candidates, Academic Success, Shyness