Instructional leadership roles of lifelong learning institution directors: A mixed method research

This study was carried out in order to determine the level of the instructional leadership roles of the administrators of public education centers. In this research, which is designed in the diversity pattern of the mixed method, the study group was formed by sampling the maximum diversity of the sampling methods. In this context, 9 principals working in public education centers within the provincial boundaries of Trabzon and 515 trainers working as teachers/master trainers for at least 1 year in these institutions have formed the study group. The semi-structured interview form prepared by the researcher and the Instructional Leadership Scale prepared by Şişman (2004) were used as data collection tools. In addition, strategic plans covering the years 2015-2019 were collected in order to conduct document analysis. Quantitative data were analyzed by means of SPSS package program and the qualitative data were analyzed by means of content analysis. As a result of the comparison or integration of the findings in accordance with the mixed method, it has been determined that the level of fulfillment of the instructional leadership roles of the directors of the institutions has been decreasing as they move from planning to implementation. While trainers define institution managers as instructional leaders at mostly level, corporate managers consider themselves to be middle-level instructional leaders. In addition, no significant difference was found between the instructional leadership behaviors of institution managers and the duty and service duration variables of the trainers. Key Words: Instructional leadership, Lifelong learning, Public education