The study of the relationship between the self esteem and the focus of control types of public school principals

The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not the principals? personalities effect their self esteem and the type of focus of control they implement while performing their duties. Furthermore to determine if a meaningful difference exists among their self esteems depending on the type of focus of control they used. In this study Jullian Robert's Internal/External Focus of Control Scale, Arıcak's Trakya University Self Esteem Scale Measurement Forms have been used. These forms were forwarded to the cities of Beşiktaş, Eminönü and Fatih in the greater Istanbul area between June, 16, 2006 and September, 10, 2006. After the collection of the filled out forms was complete, they were checked for errors and completeness. After the incomplete and erroneous forms were discarded, 87 forms remained deemed useful for our study. The forms were analyzed and sorted in groups by sex, age, type of education, level of education, number of years served as a teacher, number of years served as principals and income levels. The self esteem and focus of control scores were compared using non parametric Mann Whitney U test. Self esteem and focus of control scores were compared against the afore mentioned groupings by Kruskal- Wallis' Analysis of Variances by Ranks test. The relation of self esteem and focus of control scores were analyzed by usage of Pearsons' Product-Moment Correlation. The summary of findings of the study is as follows: No meaningful differences in the self esteem scores were found among the groups regardless of their sex, age, type of education, level of education, number of years served as principle and the income levels. The only meaningful difference was among the groups length of time served as teachers. No meaningful differences were found among the principles focus of control scores regardless of which group they belong to. No meaningful relationship was found between principles self esteem and focus of control scores. Key words: Primary school principles, self esteem, focus of control.