Investigation of reflective thinking level of social studies teachers (an example of Şanlıurfa city)

This research is a descriptive study as it employs quantitative research design scanning model for determining the reflective thinking levels of the social studies teachers and also a qualitative study since it examines the reflective thinking behaviours of the teachers within the classroom environment deeply. While the universe of the research is the social studies teachers working in Turkey, the universe of the study is the social studies teachers working in Şanlıurfa within 2009-2010 education year. Due to the accessability of the universe of the study, no sampling was employed for the quntitative dimension of the research, 277 social studies teachers working in the towns and villages of Şanlıurfa Provinces took part in the study voluenteerly. While determining the teachers who shall take part in the qualitative part of the study, targeted sampling method, which is one of sampling techniques included within the qualitative research tradition and not having possibility basis, was employed, and 11 social studies teachers?four working in village schools, three working in district centers and four working in the town center?took part in the study. A two phased process was followed during the data collection phase where triangling among the methods were employed. In the first stage, Reflective Thinking Tendencies Determination Scale (YANDE) which was developed by Semerci (2007) and personal data form developed by the researcher was employed in order to determine the reflective thinking levels of the social studies teachers working at primary schools. In the second stage, in order to determine how the teachers transform their reflective thinking skills into behaviour within the classroom environment two qualitative data collection methods?interview and observation- were employed. While analyzing the quantitative data obtained within Spring term of 2009?2010 education year using YANDE Scale, besides the descriptive statistics, according to the characteristics of the independent parameter and distribution, while ANOVA and Kruskall Wallis test were employed in multiple comparisons, t test and Mann Whitney U test were used in case of dual comparisons and LSD test was employed for the meaningfulness of the differences. In the analysis of the data obtained as a result of a process consists of interview with teachers and 31 hour classroom observations, raw data texts are read line by line, coded and the differences are determined and in this way content analysis which contains the determination of the the main lines of the research and forming the common meanings was employed.At the end of the study it was found that while the reflective thinking levels of the social study teachers was found very high, their most positive perception related to the reflective thinking skills was ?Frankness? dimension. Although there is no meaningful difference in the statistics performed, it was found that female teachers have a higher reflective thinking tendency in interrogating and effective teaching, teaching responsibility and being scientific, researching, being foresighted and sincere dimensions and have more positive perceptions about their profession. While there is no meaningful difference on the reflective thinking levels of the teachers on the basis of the length of service and the size of the location (province, district, village) they serve, it was found that the teachers with a length of service between 11 and 15 years have a higher reflective thinking tendency. In this research it was established that the teachers graduated from the faculties and departments of other disciplines are more foresighted and sincere and as the number of the students in the class increases, the tendency for ?continuous thinking for a goal? increases meaningfully but the perceptions for the professions change in a negative way.The interviews performed showed that the teachers have positive perceptions for their own behaviours about reflective thinking but the classroom observations revealed that the teachers do not act as frank as they perceive themselves, and they do not create the ambiance where the students can explain their own feelings and ideas, their fear, anxiety or worries about the subject freely. The teachers, who declare that they perform the requirements of the interrogative and effective teaching and they are ready for the proposals and critics related to teaching, mostly give their lessons directly from the teacher?s books, make the students read from the textbooks and they rarely employ different activities other than the textbook and do not make explanations linking the subjects with the daily life and ask open ended questions which makes the students discuss and think. Although the teachers who declares that they make self criticism about the lesson process at the end of the lesson, within the day, each week or after the written exams state that they try to make a change if they are aware of soemthing wrong with the lessons, they can not apply them in practice. The teachers who have their lessons with the same students most of the time, rarely look for theoretical or practical solutions for the students who are not interested in the lesson, deal with other activities during the lessons, chat with each other, do not attempt to participate to the lesson. It was seen that the teachers who think that they employ different methods and techniques in the lesson, in practice, most of the time do not arrange the learning-teaching process according to the abilities and individual needs of the students, do not evaluate the results of teaching, do not guide the students in case of learning difficulties (asking guiding questions, giving ques, etc.), do not explain the activities and do not use concept maps. The teachers who state the difficulties of living in a restricted social area, program changes, insufficient materials, decreasing credit of the profession within time, different type of teacher hiring as the unliked issues related with the profession express that they do not feel they need to make reasearch since there is no pressure from the students and they also say that the education system do not reward the teachers who makes research or pay attention to his/her personal development.