Research of mathematical skills related to the geometrical circle of 8th grade students

The goal of this research is to study the mathematical skills related to the geometrical circle of 8th grade primary school students.This research has been carried out within the first period of the 2007-2008 academic year in 3 state and 1 private elementary schools located in the Kecioren, Sincan and Yenimahalle districts of Ankara. Problem solving skills related to the geometrical circle of students in state schools and private schools have been compared. Therefore, the ?sweeping? model has been used in this research. In the research, two tests have been developed; the first one is a multiple-choice ?Knowledge test? to evaluate the students' knowledge about the geometrical circle topic, and the second one are two different limited-answer ?Performance duties? to evaluate their problem solving skills. These measurement instruments have been applied to 196 students studying in the 8th grade and measurement results have been obtained.Results obtained from this research have been evaluated with the SPSS software tools. In the analysis of the data, t-tests have been used to compare the success of students with different gender and different type of of school. Also, students' Knowledge Test scores and Performance Duty scores have been analysed for any correlation.The results of the analysis indicate that girls are more successful than boys in the first ?Performance duty? and students in private schools are more successful than students in state schools in both measurement instruments.