Determining the extend to which high school principals exercise their authority and responsibilty

ABSTRACTDETERMINING THE EXTEND TO WHICHHIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPALSEXERCISE THEIR AUTHORITY AND RESPONSIBILTYKESER, ZehraM. A. Thesis, Department of Educational SciencesSupervisor: Prof. Dr. Tokay GEDİKOĞLUJanuary 2007, 137 pagesThe aim of this study was to analyze the extent to which high school principalsexercise their authority and responsibility. All high school principals in Şahinbey andŞehitkamil districts of Gaziantep participated in the study. The study was conductedduring the academic year of 2005-2006. In order to find out the degree to which highschool principals exercise their authority and responsibility, a questionnaire wasdeveloped. A five-point Likert scale was used in the questionnaire and it contained50 items: 15 items were about school administration, 11 about staff service, 11 aboutquality improvement in education, 9 about bureaucratic procedure, and 4 about socialwork. Statistical analyses of the data showed that school principals exercised aconsiderable amount of authority and responsibility. Statistically significantdifferences were found among the school principals according to the school thegraduated from, type of school they worked in and socio-economic status of areawhere the school is located. The results indicated that: (1) School principals whograduated from Education Faculties exercised more authority and responsibilitycompared to principals who graduated from Education Institutes; (2) Principals ofAnatolian, science, religion, trade and commerce, high schools exercised moreauthority and responsibility compared to principals of ordinary high schools; and (3)School principals of high schools located in higher socio-economic areas exercisedmore authority and responsibility than school principals of high schools located inlower socio-economic areas. It was also found that there were no significantdifferences among the high school principals regarding gender, age, and length ofservice.Key words: High school principal, Authority, Responsibility.