Abstract:

In our rapidly changing and developing world, organizations maintain the struggle to survive in competition environment. This struggle forced the organizations to notice social factors as well as economic factors. One of the basic issues encountered by contemporary organizations is about how society perceives the organization. Organizations become more accountable to society today and thus it becomes inevitable that they portray a positive image to be characterized as successful organizations. Image is a perception manner that emerges in thoughts of external participants which based on organization members for development and consists of vision, mission and values of the organization (Sabuncuoğlu, 2004). According to Hatch and Schultz (2002), image was described as overall thought about how organization creates an impression on members and others. Like other branches, education was effected by developments emerge in the current competition environment. Especially, new developments emerged right after the progress of computer technologies did not allow staying in national borders and required to be operated in an international environment (Cerit, 2006). From the point of education institutions, experiences during the application period, advertising and public relations and applicant providing activities are very important for the emergence of first perception and this perception plays a crucial role in the decision to apply for a school (Collins and Stevens, 2001). This situation increases competition among high schools. To be a preferred high school by students, creating a positive organizational image is considered as a significant factor. Therefore, it was tried to determine teachers' perceptions about images of high schools. At the same time, people create their perceptions about an organization as a result of interaction with this organization. For that reason, in determining the level of organizational, information related to this organization should be obtained from people who are affined with this organization (Cerit, 2006). In this sense, because of image perceptions of teachers obliged to give education service in high schools as thought their perceptions about institution where they serve thinkable as important, organizational image levels of high schools were tried to determine according to teachers' opinions. Purpose: This study aims to examine the level of organizational image perceived by teachers concerning schools they serve in. Also to test whether there is any relationship between some valuables (gender, age, branch and school type) and organizational image level of schools. For this purpose questions below are tried to be answered: What is the level of teachers' organizational image perceptions concerning their schools? Is there any relationship between teachers' organizational image perceptions concerning their schools and demographic variables (gender, age, branch and school type)? Methodology: Quantitative research method and survey strategy were used in this research. Survey model is an approach aimed at determining the existence of a current or impermanent condition. Subject of research is tried to describe in conditions of individual or object (Karasar, 2006). In the research, relationships between teachers' organizational image perceptions concerning their schools and gender, age, branch and school type examined respectively. Workgroup of the research consists of 190 teachers who serve in Anatolian high schools randomly selected from city center of Sivas in school year 2011/12. Data collection tool was developed by Polat, Abat and Tezyürek (2010) based on survey developed by Kazoleas, Kim and Moffitt (2001) to measure the image of higher education institutions. This 5 point Likert scale consists of five dimensions; organizational image, quality image, program image, background image, social image and appearance image. Alpha reliability coefficient of the scale is .92. Alpha reliability coefficient of scale's dimensions are .90 for quality image, .79 for appearance image, .81 for social image, .75 for background image and .63 for program image, respectively. SPSS packaged software was used in analysis and evaluation of findings. To determine secondary education teachers' organizational image perceptions concerning their schools, arithmetic mean (X ̄) and standard deviation (SD) values of teacher perceptions were surveyed in line with subgoals of research. The test of normality was conducted at first to test whether levels of perception vary according to the individual and organizational feature. For that purpose, the scaviness and flatness coefficients were surveyed and it was shown that the coefficients are between (-1, +1). Additionally, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was conducted because the number of samples is more than 50 (N=190) and as a result of that it was shown that normality hypothesis is provided by model. T test from parametric tests and one-way variance analysis were conducted right after passing the normality test. Independent Samples T Test was conducted to test whether there is a significant difference between answers given by subjects to scale clauses with regard to variables of gender and school type. One-way variance analysis (ANOVA) was conducted to test whether there is a significant difference between answers given by subjects to scale clauses with regard to variables of age and branch. Findings: In general, organizational image of schools are perceived by teachers in "mid-level". Most perceived dimension among others is quality image of schools. This is followed by appearance image, social image, background image and program image, respectively. Social, background and program images are perceived in "mid-level", while quality image of schools is perceived in "high-level". No image dimension was perceived in “ultrahigh-level”. Schools focused mostly on academic quality and it seems that schools pass over other image dimensions. There are no significant differentiation between perceptions of teachers' organizational image, quality image from sub-dimensions, appearance image, social image, background image and program image and variables of gender, age and branch. There is no significant differentiation between teachers' perception of organizational image, social image from sub-dimensions and background image and school type. But there are significant differentiations in sub-dimensions of organizational image; quality image (in favour of Anatolian high schools), appearance image (in favour of Anatolian high schools) and program image (in favour of general high school) perception according to variable of school type. Conclusion and Discussion: In consequence of the research, the organizational image of schools was found in "mid-level" according to teachers' opinion. Quality image which is one of the sub-dimension of organizational image were perceived in "high-level" and other dimensions such as program, background, social and appearance images were perceived in "mid-level". Also it was shown that there is no difference between teachers' image perceptions in terms of gender, age and branch. Teachers anticipate similarly whatever their gender, ages and branches are. Another important result of the analysis is that teachers perceive quality and appearance image of Anatolian high schools at higher levels than general high schools'. Differentiation of quality image is an expectable situation due to the fact that teachers are appointed to institutions through examination and their students come to school after a placement test. Also appearance of Anatolian high schools is perceived better than general high schools'. In the program image, yet, the superiority of general high school stands out more than Anatolian high schools'. In general, while Anatolian high schools distinguish in numeric and equally-weighted fields, general high schools distinguish verbal, sporting and fine arts fields and show variety in comparison with Anatolian high schools.

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