Investigation of decision making skills of fourth grade students according to student and teacher opinions

This research aims to investigate the decision making skills of primary school students. In this study, problems in the development of decision-making skills and the current situation are examined in a comprehensive way through mixed method approach. The design of the research was adopted as "The convergent parallel design", as in the classification of Creswell and Plano Clark. 9 classroom teachers and 1032 fourth grade students from different socio-economic levels participated in the research. Maximum variation sampling method was used to determine the participants of the study. When determining teacher participants, condition of having master's degree was stipulated. The data of the study were collected via "Student Personal Information Form", "Decision Making Skills Scale", "Applying Decision Rules Test", "Choices and Consequences Activity" and "Semi-structured Interview", all of which were developed by the researcher. Qualitative data that were obtained from teacher interviews were analyzed using content analysis and structured under themes. Relational comparisons were performed on the quantitative data that were obtained from the students who participated in the study. Qualitative and quantitative findings are combined and discussed in a holistic approach.