The Relationship Between Primary School Students’ Social Skills and Attitudes towards Social Studies Course and Their Academic Achievement

In the current study, it was aimed to examine the relationship between fourth grade students' social skills, their attitudes towards Social Studies course and their academic achievement. In line with the purpose, the present research adopted a convergent parallel design, one of the mixed type research methods. Quantitative data were collected from 172 fourth grade students who were enrolled in state school in İstanbul. The quantitative phase of the study conducted using ‘Social Skills Evaluation Scale' and ‘The Attitude Scale Towards Fourth- Grade Social Studies Course.' The qualitative data were collected from 30 students through simple random sampling method. ‘Structured Interview Form' was employed in order to collect qualitative data. Analysis of the quantitative data included simple linear regression while the analysis of qualitative data included content analysis. Results showed that social skills and students' attitudes towards Social Studies courses were a low-level, significant and positive predictor of their academic achievement.