An evaluation of factors affecting decision making among 4th grade elementary school students with low socio-economic status

Decision making is one of the most important life skills. While making correct, timely, accurate and appropriate decisions lead to positive changes in one’s life, making incorrect decisions may have a negative impact. It is an important issue to examine what the 4th grade students in primary school have about the decision-making ability to be achieved in adolescence and what qualities 4th grade primary students should have for this skill. Evaluation of 4th grade elementary school students for developmental characteristics and qualifications they need to have to be able to gain appropriate decision making ability by puberty emerges as an important issue. Even though age 9-10 is not a period when important or life changing decisions are made, it is still considered the period that individuals start to make real decisions in their life. In this age period, we believe that attempts can be made to help children use their decision making ability more effectively by identifying factors affecting this behavior. In this regard, the aim of this study is to determine factors that have impact on children’s decision making process. This study is designed as a case study and conducted according to qualitative research approach. The study was conducted with 34 elementary school students and 3 teachers. Student interview forms developed by researchers were used to collect the data. In accordance with the data obtained, interviews were conducted with the teachers. The content analysis is included during data analysis process. In our study, we have shown that TV-media, family-close family/friends, neighborhood, the teaching process and some developmental characteristics are found to have affected children’s decision making. © IEJEE.