The relationship between power types used by school principals and teachers' autonomy behaviours (İzmir sample)

This study aimed to find out the relationship between power types used by school principals and teachers' autonomy behaviours. The population of this descriptive study consisted of private and public school teachers employed primary, secondery and high schools in the centre of İzmir. This study was designed in survey model. The sample of study consisted of 419 teachers. The Teacher Autonomy Scale which was developed by Çolak and Altınkurt (2017) and The Organizational Power Scale in Schools which was developed by Yılmaz and Altınkurt (2013) were used as data collection tools. Aritmetic mean and standart deviation were used the teachers' views about power types used by the school principals and teacher autonomy. The t-test was used to find out whether or not the views of the school principals on power types and teacher autonomy differed according to gender and type of school (public and private). The variance analysis (ANOVA) was used to find out whether or not the views of the teachers related to power types of school principals and teacher autonomy differed according to their school level, subject taught and professional experince. So as to determine significant differences according to the results of ANOVA, Sidak post-hoc comparison was used. The η2 (eta-squared) statistic was used to determine the effect size of the difference between groups. The multivariate regression analysis was used in order to determine whether or not power types used by school principals significantly predicted teacher autonomy. According to the teachers who participated in this study, school principals mostly use legitimate power, then expert power, reward power, referent power and coercive power. The power types used by school principals differed significantly according to gender, school level and subject taught. The teachers' views did not differ according to type of school and professional experience. According to the results of the research, teachers' general autonomy behaviors are at a high level. Teachers displayed the most teaching autonomy among the autonomy dimensions. This dimension was followed by curriculum autonomy, communication autonomy and professional development autonomy respectively. Teachers' autonomy behaviours significantly differed according to type of school and subject taught variables. Teachers' autonomy behaviours did not differ according to gender and school level variables. The power types used by school principals explain 18% of teachers' general autonomy. There was a positive and intermediate level of relationship between teachers' general autonomy behaviours and reward power, referent power and expert power. There was a positive and low level of relationship between teachers' general autonomy behaviours and legitimate power. However, there was a negative and low level of relationship between teacher's general autonomy behaviours and coercive power. Reward power was a significant predictor of teachers' general autonomy behaviours. Keywords: Autonomy, teacher autonomy, power, school principals, teacher