Instructional leadership behaviours of the primary schools' principals

This research aims at determining to what extent primary school principals carry out instructional leadership behaviours based on the primary school principals? and teachers? perceptions.The research sample consists of 48 primary school principals and 697 primary school teachers, totally 745 subjects, working in 48 primary schools in the central districts of Izmir (Buca, Bornova, Konak, Karşıyaka) in 2011-2012 education year. ``Personal Data Form? and `Instructional Leadership Scale??, developed by Mehmet Şişman (2011) were used to collect the data for the research. 23 research questions were answered in the research. Arithmetic mean, standart deviation, t- test, One Way ANOVA (F), Mann-Whitney U Test, Kruskal Wallis Test and Scheffé Test were used to analyze the data. The results of the research are summarized below: Principals? scores of perceptions of their instructional leadership behaviours are higher than those of teachers. Principals? scores of perceptions of their instructional leadership behaviours both in general and concerning the sub-dimensions do not vary in terms of such variables as their gender, age, branch, the duration of service at school, the duration of service as a teacher, the duration of service as a principal, educational level, having `Education Management? education or not, the socio-economic level of the school environment, school size and school type. Teachers? scores of perceptions of their school principals? insructional leadership behaviours do not vary in terms of such variables as principals? gender, age, branch, the duration of service at school, the duration of service as a teacher, the duration of service as a principal, having `Education Management? education or not and school type. However, teachers? scores of perceptions show significant differences in terms of principals? education level, the socio-economic level of the school environment and school size. According to the principals? education level, teachers evaluate principals graduating from institues more positively; according to the socio-economic level of the school, teachers have high opinion of the principals working in high socio-economic environment and according to the school size, teachers? perceptions of the principals working in medium-size schools are higher. Key Words: Leader, Leadership, School Principal, Instructional Leadership, Dimensions of Instructional Leaderhip