The examining of primary classroom teachers' views of life skills in terms of multiple variables

With the renewed primary education programs, it is aimed that the students should be graduated from schools as of equipped with the skills that will make them successful in life. These skills are particularly classified as scientific process, life skills and engineering and design skills in the context of 21st century skills in the science curriculum renewed by the Ministry of National Education. The aim of this research is to describe the life skills of primary classroom teachers and to examine whether there is a significant differentiation or not according to some variables (gender, seniority, academic achievement, place of employment).Determining these skills of teachers being a model especially for their students in their classrooms, is important in terms of shaping the opportunities that they will offer to their students. Because life skills are a learning-based behavior pattern that people will help deal with the responsibilities of daily life.In the research, data has been obtained by using relational survey technique from quantitative research methods. The sample of the study has been consisted of 456 primary classroom teachers who have been randomly selected and have participated in the research process voluntarily in TRC11Gaziantep, TRC21Sanlıurfa, TRC31 Mardin and TRC33 Şırnak provinces from Southeastern Anatolia. The research data has been obtained by using the Life Skills Scale and Cronbach Alpha whose reliability coefficient has been calculated as .90. Descriptive statistics and non-parametric analysis techniques has been used in the analysis of the data. According to obtained results showed that the primary classroom teachers generally use high level of life skills. In addition, male classroom teachers' usage level of life skills are higher than female. Especially, in terms of coping with emotions and stress, the average of female teacher was lower. Another result is that the levels of classroom teachers' life skills were depending on their provinces. In general, it was determined that when they move from the South East provinces to the eastern provinces, their use of life skills increases. Moreover, some independent variables such as higher academic achievement and seniority led to a higher level of life skills of classroom teachers. Key Words: Primary classroom teachers, life skills, life long skills