Administrators' and teachers' adoption levels of learner centered education principles and the relationship between their perceptions of school effectiveness

Learner-centered paradigm and the school effectiveness are among the notable concepts that first emerged in the field of education in the global world, where competition is at odds and the free movement of labor is experienced. Learner-centered education, unlike traditional education, is considered as a perspective that combines individual focus on students (their hereditary characteristics, past experiences, perspectives, socio-economic background, skills, interests, competences and requirements) and focus on learning. School effectiveness is defined as the impact of school factors such as school policy, climate and mission on students' mental, emotional and academic performance. Effective schools are seen as "schools that can achieve the most appropriate learning environment for students' mental, psychomotor, social, emotional and aesthetic developments by achieving the highest level of school objectives at the same level". Throughout this dissertation, it is aimed to describe the relationship between administrators' and teachers' learner-centered educational principles adoption levels and their perceptions of school effectiveness in secondary schools. In this way, the effects of administrators and teachers on learner-centered education principles and their effects on the effectiveness of their schools were examined. In this framework, the study includes the characteristics of quantitative research methods. In addition, survey model was utilized in this research. The population of the study consisted of 6536 teachers and 586 administrators working in 235 public secondary schools located in Bursa Metropolitan City in 2017 - 2018 Academic Year. The sample of the study consisted of 429 participants including 364 teachers and 65 administrators from 32 secondary schools. The data of the study were gathered through "Learner-Centered Educational Principles Adoption Scale" developed by the researcher and Şişman's (1996) "Effective School Scale". Parametric and non-parametric analyzes were used depending on the normal distribution of the data gathered. In this framework, independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis H test, Pearson moment product correlation, simple linear regression and multiple regression analyses were used in data analysis process. As findings of the study; it has been revealed that administrators and teachers adopt learner-centered education principles at high-level and share the same idea in this context, and that the participants perceive their schools as highly effective and that administrators have a higher opinion than teachers about their schools' effectiveness. In addition, while the participants' adoption of student-centered principles did not differ significantly according to their branches, it was determined that their opinions about learner-centered principles increased as their education levels and professional experiences increased. On the other hand, the perceptions of administrators about the effectiveness of their schools were higher than the teachers. In addition, it was found that participants with higher professional experience and who had a Physical Education branch had found their schools to be more effective, while there was no significant difference in their perception of school effectiveness according to their levels of education. Finally, it was found that there was a low but significant and positive linear relationship between the level of learner-centered education principles of participants and perceptions of school effectiveness. In this context, regression results revealed that the learner-centered understanding has a low but significant and positive effect on the perception of school effectiveness. The results obtained from the research can guide policy-makers, administrators, and teachers for efforts to increase school effectiveness from a student-centered perspective.