School Principals’ Views on Administration Work, Their “Frequent Turnover” and Its Effects on Their Work

School administrators’ “frequent turnover” has been discussed intensively in the Turkish Educational System recently. Currently, principals are selected for 4 years after an interview conducted by a committee of directors of national education. After that period, they either go back to their classes or are chosen for another 4 years for the last time. This frequent turnover can be disruptive for schools. This study was conducted to determine school principals’ views on administration work and this frequent turnover. The study employed a qualitative research design. The participants were 20 principals chosen with maximum sampling method. The data were analyzed with content analysis method. Results revealed that most principals consider administration work as a professional and career profession which requires expertise, leadership qualities and education in educational administration. They also evaluate the selection system as problematic and limiting their work period with 4 years prevents them from realizing long-term projects. Finally, they think that the system works with political considerations clearly

ACADEMICIANS' VIEWS ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN EDUCATION

It is seen that changing information and communication technologies affect and even transform things in almost every area of the digital age that we have in conjunction with Industry 4.0 and globalization. These rapid changes and transformations in the world affect education both as a structure and as learning environments. One of these values has been the digital transformation. As the increasing use of technology in every day and learning environments, now most of the students are born to a digital world. In this context, this study was designed with a phenomenological research design as the qualitative approach in order to determine academics' views on digital transformation in education in terms of program and management processes. The working group consists of 20 faculty members working at 9 different universities in the Department of Educational Sciences. The data were collected with a semi-structured interview form. Results reveal that in the digital transformation process, managers must first create a vision to generate and managed accordingly for an effective learning environment. According to another result, it is possible that school shareholders are involved in this transformation process by letting them access the place and time by supporting content and infrastructure which is technologically appropriate. It is recommended that educational administrators and program specialists be ready for this transformation and have the qualities to manage this transformation.

Teachers’ perceptions on their awareness of social roles and efforts to perform these roles

As in the rest of the world, teachers’ roles have been changing in the Turkish educational system. In this process, their roles have been redefined as technical and social roles. In their technical roles, they focus on regular educational core tasks while in their social roles they dwell upon a wide range of social tasks besides teaching. However, there is a tendency to restraining their technical roles, which limits them to dealing with their social roles. As a result, they may lose interest and awareness of their social roles. Therefore, in the research reported on here we aimed to determine teachers’ perceptions of their awareness of their social roles. We also aimed to discover teachers’ efforts to realise these roles. For this purpose, we employed a qualitative phenomenological research design. The data were collected through interviews with 30 participant teachers chosen using the maximum sampling method. The data were analysed with the content analysis method. The results of this research reveal that teachers were mostly aware of their social roles. It was also found that participating teachers strove to realise their social roles. It is recommended that teachers’ social roles are emphasised more during their pre-service education and while performing their roles. Keywords: social roles; teachers; technical role

Factors Affecting Trust in Female and Male School Leaders

This research aims to determine the factors that affect teachers’ trust in male and female leaders. The study employed a qualitative research design. The data were collected with interview technique. In this regard, 20 teachers were interviewed. The participants were determined with purposeful sampling method. The data were analyzed with inductive analysis method. Results revealed that the participant teachers trust different behaviors or characteristics of their male or female leaders. In general, teachers trust in their female leaders’ more because of their objective, idealistic, dedicated behaviors, and also their motherly, sensitive and compassionate personality. On the other hand, teachers trust in their male leaders as they are fair, trustworthy, frank, competence, more rational and strong communicators. While male leaders are believed to take initiative and implement the laws and regulations more strictly, female administrators are more interested in the administration profession, behave meticulously and work devotedly. It is recommended that school administrators should create a climate of objectivity and trust in school.Esta investigación tiene como objetivo determinar los factores que afectan la confianza de los docentes en los líderes masculinos y femeninos. El estudio empleó un diseño de investigación cualitativo. Los datos fueron recolectados con la técnica de la entrevista. Al respecto, se entrevistó a 20 docentes. Los participantes se determinaron con el método de muestreo intencional. Los datos fueron analizados con el método de análisis inductivo. Los resultados revelaron que los docentes participantes confían en diferentes comportamientos o características de sus líderes masculinos o femeninos. En general, los docentes confían más en sus lideresas por su comportamiento objetivo, idealista, dedicado, y también por su personalidad maternal, sensible y compasiva. Por otro lado, los docentes confían en sus líderes masculinos ya que son comunicadores justos, confiables, francos, competentes, más racionales y fuertes. Si bien se cree que los líderes masculinos toman la iniciativa e implementan las leyes y reglamentos de manera más estricta, las administradoras están más interesadas en la profesión administrativa, se comportan meticulosamente y trabajan con devoción. Se recomienda que los administradores escolares creen un clima de objetividad y confianza en la escuela

An Analysis of Undergraduates’ Study Skills

AbstractThere is a growing need for the integration of various theoretical perspectives on academic achievement such as study skills. Study skills are approaches applied to learning that assist students to be successful in schools in a way of passing an exam or even obtaining good grades. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of undergraduates’ study skills on academic achievement and significances in their study skills in terms of gender and department. The sample group of the study consists of 210 undergraduates studying in three different departments at School of Education. To determine their study skills, the data were collected using “Study Skills Scale” developed by Bay, Tugluk, and Gencdogan (2005). To determine the correlation between undergraduates’ study skills and academic achievement, the analysis of Pearson correlation was used. Also, to determine significant differences in undergraduates’ study skills regarding gender and departments, the analysis of independent samples of t-test and ANOVA were conducted. The results reveal that there is a positive correlation between study skills and academic achievement and also significant differences were found in undergraduates’ study skills in terms of gender and departments