Investigation of teacher perceptions related to Syrian primary school student's aggression behavior's levels and causes of these behaviors

The general purpose of the conducted study is to examine the commonness and causes of aggressive behaviors among Syrian students in primary schools through teachers' perceptions. In order to reach this aim, survey model, a quantitative research method, was used. The universe of the study was composed of Syrian students attending to the primary Schools in Mersin city center in the 2018-2019 academic year. Since the students do not know Turkish well enough, the data was collected through their teachers using a questionnaire. The data collection tool, four-dimensional "Aggressive Behavior Questionnaire", was developed by the researcher after a literature review. The perceptions of 94 primary school teachers who accepted to fill out the questionnaire about their Syrian students were included in the data set. In the end, the sample of the study was consisted of 678 Syrian primary school students whose teachers filled out the questionnaire. The analysis of the obtained data was done using frequencies and percentages which were calculated with SPSS 22.0 statistics software. At the end of the study it was found that the percentages of Syrian students who display "generally" and "always" aggressive behaviors were very low. Percentages of male students who show "generally" and "always" aggressive behaviors were higher than female students' percentages. Aggressive behaviors were observed more in the 2nd and 3rd grade students. It was also found that students whose mothers are alive displayed more aggressive behaviors in all of aggression types than students whose mothers are not alive. On the other hand, the percentage of students who show aggressive behaviors was higher in the father-alive group than the father-not alive group. Regarding the number of siblings, the students who do not have any siblings or the ones who have 3-4 siblings generally had higher aggressive behavior levels than other students. In addition, regarding the Turkish language level, the students with low and medium Turkish language level have higher aggressive behavior levels than other students. According to the opinions of more than half of the teachers (55.3%), "seen as a common behavior" can be stated as the most suitable expression that best reflects the commonness of aggressive behaviors among Syrian students in primary schools. Regarding the main reasons of aggressive behaviors among Syrian students in primary schools, one third of the teachers (36.2%) reported psychological reasons such as trauma, aimlessness and hopelessness. Keywords: Aggression, aggressive behavior, Syrian students, primary school