The examination of teachers and school administrators' opinions about the influence tactics used by school principals

The aim of this study was to determine the opinions of teachers and school administrators regarding the influence tactics used by school principals. The present study with mixed methods research design was carried out in the province of Şanlıurfa during the 2019-2020 academic year. The data of the quantitative phase of the study were obtained from 333 teachers working at public schools who specified by stratified random sampling method. Participants in the qualitative phase included 14 school principals based on the maximum diversity sampling method. Quantitative data were collected through a 44-item "Influence Behaviour Scale" named "IBQ G" developed by Yukl, Seifert and Chavez (2008) and adapted to Turkish by Gözü (2012), and qualitative data were gathered through a semi-structured interview protocol developed by the researcher. SPSS 23.0 software package was used to analyze quantitative data while content analysis was performed for qualitative data. According to research results, it was determined that the teacher respondents believed that their school administrators most frequently used legitimating tactic and those of personal appeals and coalition to the least. Furthermore, it was determined that the participating teachers' scores differed significantly according to certain variables. Finally, it was observed that the interviews conducted with the participating school principals not only detailed the quantitative findings but also revealed some disagreements between the two groups. The study was concluded by offering some implications after the discussion of research results.