Factors affecting the motivation of the primary and secondary school principals

The aim of this research is to reveal the factors affecting the motivations of the principals of primary schools and make suggestions according to the research findings. For this purpose, in 2012-2013 academic year, in the central districts of Antalya that are Aksu, Döşemealtı, Kepez, Konyaaltı and Muratpaşa 154 primary school principals who are currently working both in public and private sectors delivered their opinions. The principals? opinions were received with the questionnaire named ?The Factors Affecting the Motivations of the Primary School Principals. The questionnaire used in the research has two parts. In the first part, there is personal information. This information is classified. In the second part, parameters were collected with the 5 point likert scale. In the analysis of the findings, percentage, frequency, arithmetic mean, standart deviation, one way anova test, T test and LSD test were used. In all of the significance tests ?p? is accepted less than 0,05. (p<0,05) The findings of the research can be summarized as follows: The first factor affecting the motivations of the primary school principals is the quality of the job. This is respectively followed by the prestige of the job, physical conditions, career, reward opportunities and financial and social possibilities. The principals? opinions about the factors affecting the motivations of the primary school principals do not change according to their gender, age or branch. These opinions show differences according to graduation variable. With respect to the result of the research, principals? opinions about the financial and social possibilities, there is a significant difference among the principals graduating from the faculty of education, academy of education and the ones who have master?s degrees. Principals? opinions about the factors affecting the motivations of the primary school principals were studied according to their seniority and it is found out that there is a significant difference between the prestige of the job and quality of the job. While the principals whose professional seniority is between 6-20 years have the highest value in prestige of the job, the ones whose professional seniority is 25 years or more have the least value in quality of the job. When both public and private school principals? opinions about the factors affecting the motivations of the primary school principals are compared, it is found out that private school principals are affected by these factors much more than the ones working in public service.