School management competencies of administrators working at special education i̇nstitutions

The aim of the current study is to investigate the school management abilities of administrators at the special education institutes. The data have been elicited through questionnaires administered at the governmental special education institutes in Istanbul. The data will be generalized to all the governmental special education institutes located all over Turkey. The sample size includes 252 teachers employed at governmental special education institutes located in Istanbul. To analyse the data, I calculated the frequency and proportion for all independent variables. To calculate the difference between two independent variables, I used t-test. To calculate the difference between more than two independent variables, I used ANOVA. However, since the number of participants who answered the questions such as age, specialty of training, and the number of years being employed at a specific institution is below 30, I used the non-parametric equivalent of ANOVA, which is Kruskal-Wallis. Some of the results elicited as a result of the current study are as follows: Female teachers made more positive comments and rated the administrators at their school higher than the male teachers. Additionally, counselling teachers indicated more positive points regarding the administrators since they are working in close relation with them. The teachers who worked in other educational institutions before stated more positive comments on the school management capabilities of the school administrators. Regarding the analysis of the number of years of teachers being employed at a certain school, there are significant results for the answers for 21 questions. The teachers with the experience of 11-16 years and above stated positive results. The results show that the gender of teachers, years of experience at the job and years of experience at a specific educational institution have an effect on determining the school management capabilities of administrators. So, the responses elicited from teachers were "I agree most of the time" and determine the result of the current study. Key words: Special education, Special education institutes, administrator