Classroom teachers used of methods in ordering classroom discipline in primary schools

The purpose of this study was to explore primary school teachers' use of praise and punishment methods to order classroom discipline. The population of this study consisted of 1 10 primary school teachers practising in 22 primary schools, which were located in the city of Trabzon, in the school year of 1998 -1999. The data were analysed by SPSS. To determine the differences in practices of the teachers' use of praise and punishment, t test, f test and significance level were used as calculation. The research revealed important findings. Some of them are, as follows: It was revealed that there was no meaningful difference in the practices of the primary school teachers' praise and punishment in ordering classroom discipline from the methods of physical punishment, psychological punishment, psychological praise and social praise in relation to the teachers' genders. It was revealed that there was no meaningful difference in the use of praise and punishment methods to order the classroom discipline in terms of physical punishment, concrete praise, psychological punishment, psychological praise and social praise in relation to the types of the schools where the teachers worked. It was also revealed that there was a meaningful difference in the application of physical punishment in relation to the teaching experiences of the teachers in primary schools.