Examination of the situation of primary school teacher candidates using social problem solving and cognitive awareness strategies in social problem solving process

The purpose of this study is to examine the primary school teacher candidates' processes of developing solutions for a social problem in terms of cognitive awareness. The sample of the study, in which quantitative and qualitative research methods are used together, constitutes 234 primary school teacher candidates who studied at Gaziantep University in the 2018-2019 academic year. In the process of collecting quantitative and qualitative data, Cognitive Awareness Inventory, Revised Social Problem Solving Inventory-Short Form, Social Problem Scenarios and Semi-Structured Interview Form were used. In the quantitative part of the study, the level of relationship between primary school teacher candidates' social problem solving skill levels and cognitive awareness levels was determined by making correlation analysis. Then, interviews were made with 20 primary school teacher candidates who showed high and low success in solving social problems. In these interviews, primary school teacher candidates were asked to develop solutions for the social problem scenario prepared and the data obtained were subjected to content analysis. As a result of the research, it has been determined that there is a positive, moderate and significant relationship between the primary school teacher candidates' social problem solving skill levels and their cognitive awareness levels. In addition, it has been reached that primary school teacher candidates, whose problem solving skills are higher, exhibited behaviours such as analyzing problems in depth, developing more than one solution and thinking possible results of the developed solutions; and operating the cognitive awareness system increased the probability of exhibition of this behaviours. Keywords: Social Problem Solving, Cognitive Awareness, Problem Solving Strategies