The effects of high school administrators and of teachers ideas concerning school-based management and centralized management of schools on the decision making process

ABSTRACT The purpose of this research is to discern the ideas of school directors and teachers, as the core members of the school staff, concerning school-based and central management approaches, to find out the most appropriate management approach which best suits the schools in Turkish education system based on the ideas uncovered, to determine to what extent school directors and teachers have attached importance to a process based on participation and democracy in school management and to what extent school directors and teachers, as the core members of the school staff, know about contemporary management, how much they do participate and would like to participate in the decision-making processes in school management, and to what extent the present situation and their wishes to participate in decision-making are related to the kind of school management they prefer. The high school directors (n=70) and teachers (n=403) working in the province of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality constitute the sample for the research Management Tendency Scale and Participation in Decision-Making Scale were used to collect the data for the research. The subjects' ideas concerning school management approaches were determined through Management Tendency Scale and their tendencies towards management were determined based on their ideas. The degree of the subjects' participation in decision-making in their schools and their wishes to participate in decision-making were determined through Participation in Decision-Making Scale. In addition, the relationship between the subjects' tendencies towards school management and their participation in decision-making in their schools and their wishes to participate in decision-making were determined based the data obtained through both scales. The results of the research are summarized below: 1. High school directors mostly have a tendency towards central management while high school teachers generally have a tendency towards school-based management. 2. Both high school directors and teachers think that school-based management is "extremely" important. High school directors think that central management of VIIschools is "fairly" important, and high school teachers think that it is of "little" importance. 3. High school directors claim that they usually enable the teachers in their schools to participate in decision-making and would like to do it more while teachers claim that participate in decision making only a little but would like to do it more. 4. Both high school directors and high school teachers vary among themselves in terms of their ideas concerning school-based and central management, participation in decision-making and their wishes to participate in decision-making depending on some of their personal characteristics. 5. Both high school directors and teachers share the same ideas concerning teachers' participation in decision-making and those concerning instruction. 6. While high school directors' tendencies towards management, enabling teachers to participate in decision-making do not affect their ideas concerning their wishes to enable teachers to participate in decision-making, high school teachers tendencies towards management affect their participation in decision-making and their ideas concerning their wishes to participate in decision-making. 7. The high school teachers who have a tendency towards school-based management think that their participation in decision-making and their wishes to participate in decision-making is well above those of the ones who have a tendency towards central management. VIII