An analysis of teacher leadership roles in elementary schools (The case of Hatay province)

This study aimed to reveal ?to what degree do teachers and administrators perceive that teacher have leadership roles in elementary schools? and ?to what degree do teachers and administrators expect that there ought to be teacher leadership roles in elementary schools?In this study both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. The study was completed with qualitative data. Surveys were the quantitative data gathering method and focus group was the qualitative one.The population of the study comprised 2833 teachers and 271 administrators who were working for elementary schools in Hatay province central district. Elementary schools that have less than 20 teachers were not included in the study. There were 3 private elementary schools.Total number of surveys which was returned to the researcher was 795. Because of some faults, seventy four of them were used in data analysis. Six hundred and fifty six (91,0%) of the participants were from state elementary schools and 65 (9,0%) of them were working in private schools.There were five semi-structured focus group with 30 participants. Twelve teachers were from state schools, 6 were from private schools, and there were 12 administrators.To gather quantitative data, a 25 items five scale Lykert type inventory, The Questionnaire of Perception and Expectation on Teacher Leadership Roles ? QPETLR, was developed by the researcher to reveal teachers and administrators? perceptions and expectations on teacher leadership roles. During semi-structured focus group interviews, participants were asked 3 questions transformed from inventory questions and some other questions to get detailed understanding.To analyze the data, mean, standard deviation, frequency, t-test and one way ANOVA were used. For qualitative analysis, audio-taped sounds, and written texts were transcribed and changed into texts. Then, the transcribed texts were coded.According to arithmetic means, total points of expectation were different. While the mean for expectation was 110.99 (always), it was 96.66 (frequently) for perception.The interviews revealed that the expectations of the participants for teacher leadership were quite above the perceptions. That is to say that the quantitative results were supported by the qualitative results.