People encounter risky situations in almost every stage of their lives and develop certain types of behaviour as a reaction to these situations. As far as educational activities are concerned, the risks faced are called academic risks. Individuals either desire to cope with these instances of academic risks bravely or experience a sense of uncertainty due to the lack of information and action stemming from being in a quandary. On the other hand, students who feel enthusiastic when faced with academically risky circumstances are able to participate in academic activities with high motivation despite the possibility of making a mistake. However, the behaviour displayed by students towards academically risky situations are not uniform; a student who is willing to take academic risks in one subject might not have the same enthusiasm in another. The present study attempted to identify the extent of social studies-oriented academic risk-taking behaviours among middle school students in terms of multiple variables. As the data collection tool, it employs the "Social Studies-Oriented Academic Risk-Taking Scale" developed by Gezer, İlhan and Şahin (2014). It makes use of the SPSS package software for data analysis. The study concluded that the participating middle school students display high levels of social studies-oriented academic risk-taking behaviours throughout the scale. Besides, it also found that middle school students participating in the study do not show significant differences in social studies-oriented academic risk-taking behaviours in terms of the gender variable.

Academic risk, middle school students, social studies courses