Development of a scale to measure decision making skills recated to every day problems of fourth and fifth grade students

ABSTRACT DEVELOPMENT OF A SCALE TO MEASURE DECISION MAKING SKILLS RECATED TO EVERY DAY PROBLEMS OF FOURTH AND FIFTH GRADE STUDENTS Elif KARAKAŞ (GÜNAL) Master Thesis, Department of Educational Sciences Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Ahmet DO?ANAY September, 1999, 65 pages The main goal of this descriptive study is to develop a scale which measures 4. th and 5. th. grade primary school age students' decision- making skills in the case of the problem- solving which they meet in their daily lives. This research also aims to compare decision- making skills of the students according to their sexes and the economical structures of the schools' environment. It has been made in the term of 1998- 1999 and at the central school which are belong to Seyhan and Yüreğir districts of Adana. These schools have been chosen according to the informations which were taken from Adana Milli Eğitim Müdürlüğü. In this study, 658 grade 4. and 5. primary school students were selected from Anadolu İlköğretim, Hürriyet İlköğretim, Yavuzlar İlköğretim, Mimar Sinan İlköğretim, Emine Sapmaz İlköğretim, Kasım Sacide Ener ilköğretim, özel Akdeniz ve Özel Gönen Okulları as subjects. First, the draft scale had been presented to subject exports to get opinions for determining the content validity. The factor analysis had been made to find the ultimate components. T- test analysis had been used to see if there are differences between upper and lower 27 percent. During this research CronbachVI Alpha values had been observed to see the interior consistency at the step of thescale's reliability. At the end of this study, the scale had become as 17 items and 4 sub- scale. Some differences has been found out acording to economical structure of the schools and the students' sexes on students' decision making and according to the items and factors skills. Key Words : Decision making, Decision- making in primary school, Decision- making ability tests, Developing skills.