Conscience perceptions of primary school children

This research aimed to determine primary school students' views on the concept of conscience. Qualitative research method was used to determine the main purpose of the research with a holistic approach. "Phenomenology" was chosen as the research design. The reason for choosing phenomenology in this study is; The aim is to try to understand children's conscientiousness in depth using different methods, based on their experiences. The phenomenon examined in the research was chosen as "primary school students' perception of conscience". The study group of the research consists of a total of 50 students studying in 3 different classes in the 4th grade of Akkoyunlu Primary School in Kayapınar district of Diyarbakır province in the 2023-2024 academic year. Easily accessible case sampling was used to select the students participating in the research. Data in the research were collected using the interview form technique. The answers given by the primary school students participating in the research regarding their perception of conscience were examined, the answers were coded and content analysis was conducted. As a result of the research, students evaluated the concept of good as helpfulness, being compassionate, love, being happy, thinking of others, being respectful and being honest; They evaluated the concept of evil as injustice, violence, exclusion, undervaluation, sadness, lying, bad words and selfishness. In addition, regarding the situation of knowing the impact of the behavior in advance, 4th grade students said no, not wanting the behavior to be repeated. They explained that they said no because there were situations such as seeing a negative impact, being unhappy, or causing harm. Another result of the research is that students' conscientious values are shaped by the society in which they grow up. For this reason, it can be thought that the values education given at an early age will have an individual and then a social impact. Keywords: Primary Education, Classroom Teaching, Child Conscience, Primary School.