Determining leadershgip capacity in primary schools

The purpose of this study was to determine leadership capacity in primary schools and find out the factors related to leadership capacity. In addition, the study aimed to determine whether school principals and teachers' perceptions about school leadership capacity differed significantly according to gender, duty, and seniority variables, whether sub-dimensions of leadership capacity were in correlation with each other and also aimed to describe the predictive power of distributed leadership, shared school vision, collaboration and shared responsibility on perceived student achievement. This study was in explanatory design described as mixed method in which both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. A correlational study designed in survey model was carried out in quantitative dimension of the study. In the lights of the data obtained via quantitative research methods, case study, one of qualitative research designs, was used in qualitative dimension of the study. The population of the study for the quantitative part consisted of school managers and teachers employed in a total of 436 primary schools in Çankaya, Keçiören, Yenimahalle, Mamak, and Altındağ districts of Ankara. The sampling unit of this study was school and a total of 204 primary schools existed in the study population. In the qualitative part, a group of 36 school principals and teachers were interviewed. "Leadership Capacity School Survey" developed by Lambert (2003) and adapted into Turkish by researcher and a semistructured interview form which was in line with the theoretical background of the study and developed with the help of field expert opinions were used to gather data. Results of the quantitative part of the study were as follows: (1) The level of participants' perceptions on distributed leadership and shared school vision dimensions viwas lower than their level of perceptions on collaboration and shared responsibility and perceived student achievement. (2) Participants' perceptions on leadership capacity subdimensions did not differ significantly according to gender variable; however, their perceptions differed significantly in distributed leadership, shared school vision, and collaboration and shared responsibility dimensions, but not significantly in perceived student achievement dimension according to duty variable. (3) Teachers' perceptions on distributed leadership, shared school vision, collaboration and shared responsibility, and perceived student achievement dimensions differed significantly according to seniority variable. (4) School principals' perceptions on distributive leadership, shared school vision, collaboration and shared responsibility, and perceived student achievement dimensions differed significantly according to seniority variable. (5) There were positive and high level correlations among sub-dimensions of leadership capacity. (6) Collaboration and shared responsibility and shared school vision seemed to be the significant predictors of perceived student achievement while distributed leadership did not predict perceived student achievement significantly. Results of the qualitative part of the study were as follows: (1) School principals and teachers employed in schools of low, medium, and high leadership capacity together perceived leadership capacity concept as making use of various individuals' expertise, knowledge, and skills, enabling individuals in the school taking part in school leadership processes, and establishing the understanding of broad-based school leadership. (2) While principals of schools with low and medium leadership capacity tended to behave as autocratic leader, principals of high leadership capacity schools focused more on distributed leadership behaviors. (3) In schools with higher leadership capacity, participants thought they involved more frequently in decision-making processes related to teaching. (4) While participants employed in schools with low and medium leadership capacity had the opinion that they were not actively enough involved in school vision designation processes, participants from schools with high leadership capacity considered they took part in and contributed to school vision designation processes. (5) School principals and teachers stated that collective approach towards teaching was more dominant in schools with high level of leadership capacity. (6) The common practice for increasing students academic achievements in schools with different levels of leadership capacity was "caring students one-for-one". (7) viiParticipants in schools of low and high leadership capacity thought that students' academic achievement level was getting higher in last two years, while participants' opinions in medium level leadership capacity schools about students' academic achievement level for the last two years varied. (8) Among factors affecting teacher leadership in schools, school principals' support towards teacher leadership was given more importance in schools with low leadership capacity. Effective communication and colleagues learning from each other were found out to be two primary factors affecting teacher leadership in schools with medium leadership capacity and working in groups, effective communication, and openness to change become prominent in promoting teacher leadership in high leadership capacity schools. Key Words: Leadership, capacity, teacher, school principal