Abstract:

It is noted in contemporary curricula that successful students should have certain skills and abilities such as effective communicating, thinking scientifically and logically, taking advantage of technology, being productive and investigative, sharing the knowledge as well as having problem solving skills. In this context, this study focuses on problem solving skills of students of primary school math teaching department in terms of some variables. This descriptive study is designed as a survey model. The sample of the study consists of 77 students randomly chosen among the population of primary school math teaching department at Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University in 2011-2012 educational years. Turkish version of problem-solving inventory (Şahin, Şahin and Heppner, 1993) developed by Heppner and Petersen (1982) is used in this study as data collection tool. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the whole inventory is calculated with the data of this study and found to be .87. Following results are found in the study: In terms of approach of evaluating, the students whose family have monthly income of 1000 TL and lower, and in terms of approaches of evaluating and planned, the students whose fathers graduated from secondary school and lower have significantly higher problem solving ability perceptions. However, no significant difference is found between students’ problem solving ability perceptions according to the variables of gender, grade they study at, type of high school they graduated from and mother’s education level while there is also no significant relationship between students’ grade point averages and problem solving skill perceptions.

Keywords: