The problems encountered by Social Sciences teachers in Social Sciences teaching (Sample of Kastamonu province)

The aim of this study is to determine the problems encountered in Social SciencesTeaching by the Social Sciences Teachers working at the secondary schools located in the central province, districts, towns and villages in Kastamonu. The study group consists 142 Social Sciences Teachers who worked at the secondary schools located in the central province, districts, townsandvillages in Kastamonu in 2012-2013 schoolyear. The data was obtained through a 5-point Likert type questionnaire developed by Akşit and employed in his study named "The Problems Encountered bySocial Sciences Teachers of Primary Schools in Social Sciences Teaching". The questionnaire was made up of three sections, the first of which involved the questions to gather personal information about the teachers taking part in the Study; the second of which involved 38 question items to reveal the problems encountered by the teachers; the third of which involved an open-ended question in which the teachers were asked to write out any problems that did not exist in the questionnaire and to suggest solutions to overcome them. In the Study, the problems encountered were classified on the basis of those caused the student, the placement exam (SBS), the private teaching institution, the teacher, the method and technique, and the social sciences curriculum. The answers provided by the teachers for such questions were investigated to find out whether they had significant differences in terms of such variables as age, gender, place of work, the educational institution one has graduated from, graduate studies, the departmentone has graduated from, period of service, in-service trainings, socio-economic status of the school one has worked for and the feeling of self-sufficiency in Social Sciences. Within the scope of the Study, some sample secondary schools were chosen according to their locations, and the Social Sciences teachers who work at the secondary schools located in the central district and Tosya, Taşköprü, Devrekani, Cide, İnebolu, Küre, Araç and Daday were interviewedand an" interview form" was applied to the teachers as a second data collection tool. The data was analyzed through SPSS 15.0 data analysis software. Tables for the mean, Standard deviation and frequency distribution of the variables of the answers by the Social Sciences teachers to the items in the questionnaire, and the tables were then interpreted. The views of Social Sciences teachers on the problemsencountered in social sciences teaching were analyzed using a t-test and an analysis of variance (ANOVA). Findings of the study show that teachers encounter many problems in social sciences teaching. According to results of th eanalysis; • İt is seen that thereexist a significant relation between student-based problems and the variable of socio-economic status of the schools and the variable of self-sufficiency of the teachers in social sciences teaching, • A relation between the variable of self-sufficiency of the teachers in social sciences teaching, • A relation between method and technique-based problems and the variable of period of service, • A relation between curriculum-based problems and the variable of graduate studies. KeyWords: SocialSciences, socialSciencesTeaching, SocialSciencesTeachers.