The relationship between teachers' political skills and academic optimism levels

The aim of the research is to explain the relationship between teachers' political skills and academic optimism levels. The research consists of relational screening model. The target population of the study consisted of 1950 teachers and for the research, 360 teachers who worked in secondary and high schools in Salihli and Kula districts located in Manisa province during the 2016-2017 academic years were examined. In this research, easily accessible sampling was used. The data were collected by using Political Skill Scale that was adapted to Turkish by Atay(2009) and "School Academic Optimism Scale (SAOS)" that was adapted to Turkish by Çoban and Demirtaş(2010). While forming the analysis of the data; frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean and standard deviation values were calculated. In the analysis of the data; t-test, one-way variance analysis, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient and simple linear regression analysis were used. According to the results of the research, it is seen that the teachers' political skill level is high. It is assigned that according to the teachers' views; the dimension of sincerity is higher than networking ability, interpersonal influence and social astuteness. Research result shows that there is no meaningful difference in gender, graduate level, the duration of working at the same school, professional seniority and number of teachers at the same school variables on political skill. According to the results of the study, it is seen that the perceptions of the teachers to the academic optimism are in medium level. Self-efficacy sub-dimension is higher than the other sub-dimensions of the academic optimism term. As a result of the research, it is observed that the gender dimension forms a meaningful difference in the self-efficacy dimension of the academic optimism. Study results reveal that there is no meaningful difference in graduate level, professional seniority, number of teachers at the same school and the school type variables on academic optimism. By looking at analysis results, it is clearly understood that there is a positive low-level relationship between teachers' political skills and academic optimism levels. As a result of the regression analysis applied to the variations of the research, political skills perceptions of teachers have meaningful prediction on teachers' academic optimism levels. Secondary school teachers' political skill perceptions have meaningful prediction on their academic optimism levels. Yet, high school teachers' political skill perceptions have no meaningful effect on their academic optimism levels. Keywords: Political Skill, Academic Optimism