The views of administrators and teachers about school principals' mentoring skills and school climate

The aim of this research is to reveal the opinions of principals and teachers working in public primary schools in Bursa, Eskişehir, Bilecik provinces about the mentoring skills of school principals and school climate and to test the relationship between school principals' mentoring skills and school climate. The research was carried out in "convergent parallel design" in mixed methods research. In the quantitative part of the research, general scanning and relational scanning model was used, and "basic interpretive design (basic qualitative research design)" was used in the qualitative part. The sample of the research consists of 173 school principals and 414 teachers working in public primary schools in the central districts of Bursa, Eskişehir and Bilecik. The study group of the qualitative part of the research consists of 15 school principals and 18 teachers working in public primary schools in the central districts of Bursa, Eskişehir and Bilecik. The quantitative data of the research were collected with the "School Principals' Mentoring Skills Scale" and "School Climate Scale" developed by the researcher. The qualitative data, on the other hand, were obtained through interviews conducted using the semi-structured "School Principals' Mentoring Skills and School Climate Interview Form" developed by the researcher, and the interviews were analyzed by content analysis. According to the results of the analysis of the quantitative data, school principals display their mentoring skills at a high level. School principals show their mentoring skills mostly in effective communication and support, contributing to planning and professional development, and least in monitoring and evaluation. School principals think that they exhibit their mentoring skills significantly more than teachers' opinions. The general school climate perceptions of school principals and teachers are mostly positive. Principals find the climate of the school they work to be significantly more positive than teachers. While principals and teachers find the school climate, relations at school, learning environment and school safety relatively more adequate, the physical environment of the school is the dimension they find the most inadequate and they find it moderately sufficient. A highly positive and significant relationship was found between the mentoring skills of school principals and the school climate. According to the results of the qualitative analysis, the positive opinions of the teachers participating in the research on the mentoring skills of the school principals; being a good administrator, hardworking, understanding, sincere, positive, constructive and supporting teachers, providing a peaceful environment, the negative opinions they give are that their principals do not give importance to teachers' ideas, they are unqualified, they do not act fairly and unequally, they do mobbing, their leadership aspects are weak, their vision is narrow, they are insufficient in providing motivation, and their empathy and communication skills are weak. Principals and teachers mostly evaluate the relations in their schools as sincere and good relations, they find their schools safe in general, and they find the physical environment of the school mostly useless and inadequate. When the results are taken into consideration, mentor principal training programs can be organized by the Ministry of National Education to improve the mentoring skills of school principals. Mentor managers can be matched with new managers in the profession. In-service trainings for classroom observation and course supervision can be given to improve the mentoring skills of school principals in the field of monitoring and evaluation. Principals can further assist teachers in creating personal visions and developing career plans. Principals should establish positive and constructive relationships with teachers, give them regular and constructive feedback, involve them in the decision-making process, and assist in their professional development. School principals should be impartial in their relations with teachers, provide a fair environment, and lead the creation of a peaceful school environment. The physical facilities of the schools should be improved by the Ministry of National Education, funds should be allocated to schools according to their needs, and each school should be standardized. Studies can be conducted to examine the relationship between school principals' mentoring skills and different variables. As a result, strategies and policies can be developed for the training, selection and appointment of school principals.