School headquarters' attitudes towards guidance and psychological counseling services

This research aims to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool to determine the attitudes of school administrators towards guidance and psychological counseling (PCG) services. Expert opinion was consulted to ensure the validity of the scope and appearance of the item pool created after the literature review, and the composition was printed for the target group. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed for construct validity in the second stage. During the development process of the scale, data were collected from two groups for exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. In this context, the first study group of the research consists of 318 school administrators, and the second study group consists of 300 school administrators. As a result of EFA, a three-factor structure explaining 61.58% of the total variance was obtained. The three-factor structure obtained by EFA was tested and confirmed by CFA. The values obtained from CFA revealed that the three-factor structure had a good fit, and the structure was confirmed. The scale, which took its final form as a result of factor analysis, consists of three dimensions and 36 items. Cronbach's Alpha and McDonald's Omega coefficients were calculated for the reliability analysis of the scale, and the internal consistency coefficients for both were found to be 96. As a result of the analysis, a validated and reliable measurement tool was obtained. The last stage of the research is the application of the scale. At this stage, the research sample was made up of 315 school administrators who were selected by an easily accessible sampling method from within this universe and the aim is to determine the attitudes of school administrators towards school PCG services and to examine the levels of differentiation according to various variables. The findings of the research have shown that the attitudes of school administrators towards school PCG services are positive. It was concluded that the attitudes of school administrators towards school PCG services differ according to gender. It has been found that the attitudes of school administrators towards school PCG services do not change according to education level, professional seniority, length of service spent in school administration, school level, school service area and whether there is a psychological counselor in the school. By expanding the research sample, more generalizable and comprehensive results can be achieved. Attitudes of managers towards PCG services can be examined depending on different variables and new studies can be brought to the literature.