Investigation on the classroom management skills of the teachers working in the primary schools

This study was carried out in order to investigate that classroom management skills of primary school teachers depend on some significant factors (gender, experience, having/not having children, level of the class, type of the graduated degree) or not. Descriptive survey method was used in the study. Working group of the study consisted of 571 primary school teachers that work in 24 primary schools from Adana Province's central districts (Seyhan, Yüreğir, Sarıçam, Çukurova), 6 primary schools from each central district, in 2014-2015 school year. In this study, the data were prepared by the researcher, and collected by "Classroom Management Skills Scale "which was created after presenting them to an expert opinion. The Classroom Management Skills Scale consists of 21 positive articles in total. The scale was a five-point likert scale ranging from never and always. After the exploratory factor analysis, a four sub-dimension scale was obtained. The "Classroom Management Skills Scale" was applied to a total of 571 classroom teachers. The percentages and frequencies of the demographic variables and answers given to the scale were calculated. In addition to this, at the analysis of the data, the Mann-Whitney U test and the Kruskal Wallis H test, which are non-parametric, were used for groups of non-normal distributions, and the Independent Samples t Test and the One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used for groups of normal distribution. In order to determine the difference among the groups in cases where significant differences were obtained as a result of the analysis of variance, the LSD, multiple comparison test, was applied. The significance level was taken as .05. The obtained data were analysed and interpreted via SPSS for Windows version 17.0) by using statistical techniques in the computer environment. According to gained data in the study, significant difference in favour of women teachers was found in the gender sub-dimensions named "Physical Layout of Classroom'' and "Effective Communication''. Significant difference in favour of primary school teachers of 2nd year students was found in primary school teachers' class level sub-dimension named "Time and Teaching Methods'', "Behaviour Management'' and "Classroom Management Skills Total Points''. It could not statistically be found any significant difference in the factors of vocational experience, having/not having children and the latest school graduated.