Student Problems According to Parental Perceptions: A Case Study

The purpose of this study is to identify the problems of pupils in a public primary school through the perceptions of their parents. An embedded multiple case study, one of the patterns of case studies was used in the study. The study was conducted on the parents of third and fourth year pupils in a primary school located in Selcuklu district of province of Konya in Turkey in the academic year 2016-2017. The "Problem Survey List for Children" developed by Owen (2008) was applied to the parents of a total of one hundred eighty-four pupils, including ninety-one girls and ninety-three boys in this study. The items most marked by the parents were dreaming during the day, unable to get started homework on time, feeling anger to the authority and wandering in the room. The items least marked were stealing, hitting other pupils in the classroom, and lying. As a result of the evaluation of the data, it was seen that the most and least marked items were the same in the third and fourth grades, and the other items showed similar characteristics in this direction. Individual interviews with pupils and parents was decided in order to understand the causes of the marked items and to help solve the problems. Additionally, organization of group guidance activities towards the problem areas and presentation / seminar work to solve issues were aimed. Strengthening cooperation between school and family and increasing the effectiveness in the studies by including the class teachers in the process were aimed in order for the study to be conducted to achieve the desired results.