Analyzing the social characteristics of elementary school students from the perspective of teachers

Paying attention to the social characteristics of students in the list of educational goals of the elementary school has always been taken into consideration during lesson design and planning, because the primary period, as a vital period, has a significant impact on the formal and implicit education of the social dimension of students in a cross-sectional and forward-looking manner. This study was conducted with the aim of analyzing the social characteristics of elementary school students from the perspective of teachers.

The current research was conducted with qualitative methodological approach and qualitative content analysis research method, the data collection tool was a semi-structured in-depth interview. The participants of the research were selected in a targeted way in the academic year of 2022-2023 from among the primary school teachers of different cities in Iran, and data saturation was achieved with the number of 14 teachers. The qualitative content analysis of the data was done with the help of software.

The findings indicate the most important social characteristics of primary school students in six core codes and seventeen open codes, including the concept of others, understanding differences, responsibility, rights and duties, interactive skill and performance avoidance. The results show a decrease in the characteristics of responsibility, awareness of students' rights and interactive skills, and an increase in the characteristics of students' understanding of the concept of others, differences and performance aversion compared to the past.

The findings of the present research confirmed the attention to the dimensions of responsibility, rights and duties, interactive skills and performance aversion in the development of students' social characteristics. The changes created in different dimensions of students' social characteristics should change and modify curriculum elements including teaching method and grouping of students and as a result, reform the curriculum implemented by primary school teachers.