Investigating relationships between primary schools' organizational health and teachers' organizational trust levels

This study was carried out to investigate the relationship between primary school teacher's opinions about organizational health and their organizaitonal trust levels. In accordance with this purpose, primary school's organizational health level based on teachers' opinions and teachers' organizational trust level were examined. Moreover, it was examined whether teachers' opinions about organizational health and teachers' organizational trust levels differ according to gender, job title, age, seniority, working years at school and educational level. The sample group of the study consisted of 912 teachers who work in primary schools depending on Tepebaşı and Odunpazarı District National Education Directorate during the fall semester of 2013-2014 academic year. The data were collected by Organizational Health Questionnaire for Primary Schools, Organizational Health Scale, and Personal Information Form. In the analysis of data, packaged software was used. The data were analyzed using independents sample t-test, one way ANOVA and Pearson product-moment correlation analysis. According to results of ANOVA, to determine the sources of differences between levels of independent variables, Scheffe and Dunnett C multiple comparisons test were applied. With respect to results of the study, it was found that primary school teachers evaluated organizational health of their school high. Further, results indicated that there is no significant difference in teachers' opinions about total organizational health of primary schools in terms of gender, job title, age, seniority, working years at school and educational level. When the sub-dimensions of organizational health were examined, it was seen that there is no significant difference in teachers' opinions about teacher affiliation and instructional leadership in terms of all demographics variables. It was determined that teachers' opinions about organizational integrity differ with respect to their seniority. Lastly, it was found that teachers' opinions about academic emphasis differ according to gender, age, seniority, working years at school and educational level. According to the results, it was found that primary school teachers had high organizational trust level. Besides, organizational trust total scores of teachers were compared with respect to gender, job title, age, seniority, working years at school and educational level and it was determined that the only significant difference was with gender. Male teachers had higher organizational trust level than female teachers. When the sub-dimensions of organizational trust were considered, there is a significant difference in teachers' trust level in administrators in terms of educational level. It was also found that teachers' trust level in shareholders differ according to gender, job title, age, seniority, working years at school. Lastly, it was determined that there is a positive, strong and statistically meaningful relationship between organizational health of primary schools and organizational trust level of teachers. When the relationships between sub-dimensions of variables were examined, it was found that there are higher relationships between instructional leadership and trust in administrators, teacher affiliation and trust in colleagues, academic emphasis and trust in shareholders than the relationships between other sub-dimensions. Based on the results of the study, it can be suggested that school-wide social activities could be organized to make schools more healthier organizations and increase teachers' trust level in colleagues, administrators and shareholders. In addition, with further researches, it can be examined organizational health and organizational trust concepts in terms of cause effect relationship.