Investigating the relationship between the perceived educational leadership roles of primary and secondary school principals by teachers and their way of communication

The first criteria in ensuring an effective school depends on the availability of an effective and sufficient president. The fact that effective schools, that are managed by strong educational leaders, influence the success of the students paved the way to increased number of studies on educational leadership. School leaders, as educational leaders should prepare the grounds of effective learning by ensuring a positive school environment. School presidends should not forget that the reason d?etre of schools is ensuring the success of the students. Communication is a process that managers are always tackling with. One of the main ways of reaching success in education is to provide a positive communication atmosphere in the institution. The positive relationship between the school president and the teachers effect efficiency in education. The main responsibility of school presidents should be being an educational leader and establishing a strong relationship with the teachers while carrying out this task. Conducted studies prove that school presidents are perceived as the key milestone in the success of the school and their communication with the teachers as well as the level of achieving educational leadership roles gained importance The main purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between the perceived educational leadership of the school principals working in public schools in İstanbul, Kartal and their ways of communication. The study has been conducted on the on 435 randomly selected teachers who work in 24 primary and secondary schools in Istanbul, Kartal in 2006?2007. Educational Leadership Scala (Şişman, 2004), Communication Skills Questionnare (Özer, 2002) and Personal Data Form that has been developed by the researcher has been utilized in this study as a means of collecting information; moreover, SPSS computer program has been utilized in analizing the obtained data. The results have been interpreted by using statistical methods such as independent group test, unilateral Anova Test, non-parametrical Kruskal Wallis-H Test and Pearson Multiple Moments Correlation Analysis, from which the below conclusions have been derived: The perceived educational leadership roles of primary and secondary school principals by teachers are as follwos: ? Determining and sharing the aims of the school - often ? Managing the education program and process - sometimes ? Education process, evaluating and developing students - sometimes ? Supporting and developing teachers - sometimes ? Ensuring appropriate education environment - sometimes The above findings might indicate that primary and secondary school principals do not display educational leadership roles. The teachers who participated to this study rated the perceived communication skills of the school principals as ?sometimes?, which might be concluded by the claim that the level of communication skills of primary and secondary school principals is law. This study didn?t find any significant difference between the relationship of the perceived roles of determining and sharing the aims of the school, managing the education program and process, education process, evaluating and developing students, supporting and developing teachers, ensuring appropriate education environment with the gender, age, branch, level of education, total time of service in occupation, total time of service in their current schools and the time worked with the school principals. A positive correlation has been detected between the perceived roles of determining and sharing the aims of the school, managing the education program and process, education process, evaluating and developing students, supporting and developing teachers, ensuring appropriate education environment and communication skills, which might lead to the conclusion that educational leadership roles and communication skills effect each other positively