The opinions of school administrators about the duties and responsibilities of school administrators in the application of the curricula

When the literature about the curriculum is analysed, it is seen that the responsibility for the application and efficiency of the curriculum is mostly on teachers. However, school administrators also have significant responsibilities for the development, application and evaluation of the curriculum. The awareness level of administrators is very important during the implementation of the process. Accordingly, in this study, the aim is to determine the school administrators' opinions about the tasks and responsibilities of school administrators in the application of the curricula. In the study, explanatory design of mixed (quantitative – qualitative) research method was used. The major aims of doing so were to strengthen the findings, make them coherent, enhance generalizability level of the study by reaching more realistic data and avoid the restrictions caused by the use of only one method. Survey model was used in the quantitative part of the study, Case Study pattern was used in the qualitative part. However, in the quantitative part of the study, sampling method was not used; instead, all school principals and vice principals working in Bartın Province during the 2014-2015 education year were included in the study and 213 feedbacks were obtained out of 243 school directors. On the other hand, in the qualitative part of the study, six principals, two first vice principals and nine vice principals were selected from different schools by using maximum variation sampling method, which is one of the purposeful sampling methods. Besides, in the quantitative part of the study, a questionnaire with three subsections was used as a data collection tool while in the qualitative part, interview method with semi-structured questions was used. During the analysis of the data, SPSS 16,0 statistics programme was used for quantitative data, whereas, content analysis was made and NVİVO 8 was used for qualitative data. According to the results of the research, school administrators have stated that although their most significant responsibility is the application of curriculum and instructional programme, they can hardly take part in the application process of curricula mainly because of too much bureaucratic works. On the other hand, school administrators believe that teachers have the biggest responsibility for the application of curriculum and instructional programme. For the school administrators to perform their duties and responsibilities, primarily they must know the structure, content and process of the curricula. Therefore, all the school administrators should receive necessary education about curriculum in cooperation with universities.