| This study was designed to explore elementary school teachers' opinions concerning the most frequently occurring discipline problems in the classroom, the most common discipline techniques used to deal with students' disruptive behaviors, the major causes of discipline problems and teachers' attitudes toward physical punishment at schools. The population for the study was all public elementary school teachers serving in Ankara, Turkey. A stratified proportionate random sample of 400 teachers were selected from the population of 17,975 elementary school teachers. Teachers were asked to respond to a questionnaire consisting of seventy-one items. A total of 398 teachers responded to the questionnaire. The data gained from the instrument were analyzed by employing descriptive data analysis procedures including frequencies, percentages, and mean scores. At the .05 level of significance, the Chi-square test was also used to test if there were significant relationships between teachers' responses to the research questions and their sex, teaching experience, education level and grade level they instruct.;The data revealed that the most frequently occurring discipline problems were talking without permission, not doing assigned work, fighting, disruptive/excessive talking, and refusing to comply with a teacher's request. The top five discipline causes identified by teachers were family problems, disinterest of the parents toward their children's education, parents' negative attitudes and behaviors toward their children, the effects of violence presented in TV and other media, and over-crowded classrooms. Talking to the student after class, warning the students by body language, redirecting the student attention, asking the student to stop, and talking to the student alone immediately were reported to be the most frequently used discipline techniques. Concerning physical punishment, teachers strongly agreed with the statements "physical punishment damages a student's self-esteem", "physical punishment negatively affects teacher-student relationships", and "physical punishment negatively affects student academic achievement". On the background variables, gender, teaching experience, education level, and grade level taught, the Chi-square test produced a total of 58 statistically significant relationships. |
