Abstract:

Background. School principals play a crucial role in managing positive human relationships in schools. Principals should possess knowledge, skills and attitudes in maintaining sound and harmonious interpersonal relationships amongst the teaching and non-teaching staff. The relationships in schools are not only limited with formal learning, it also includes multi-faceted relationships. Fulton (1987) describes the basic competences principals need to develop as administrative relationships, teacher relationships, student relationships, and community relationships. Human relationship in school is categorized by several studies as “principal-teacher relationship”, “teacher-teacher relationship”, “teacher-student relationship” and “school-environment-student relationship” (Çınkır, 2004; Barth, 2006; Knackendoffel, 2005; Ivey and Richardson, 2007). The quality and continuity of the relationship between the above five groups has a positive impact on the quality of teaching and student achievement (Wang ve Haertel, 2001). One of the leading factors affecting the quality of teaching and learning is the professional working relationships between “principal-teacher and teacher-teacher”. The quality of the relationship between school principals, teachers, support staff and students determines the level of the professional working relationship. In other words, the level of professional working relationships is higher when there is a value system, school culture and collaboration between the workers. Purpose. In this study model of “professional working relationship process” consisting of four factors is developed. This model explains the factors schools should have and their impact on working relationships and school effectiveness. Method. Multi-stage sampling method was used to determine the research sample. 16 elementary and 16 secondary schools in eight districts within the boundaries of Ankara Metropolitan area were selected. Questionnaires were administered by researchers to 165 elementary school teachers and 130 secondary school teachers. “Working Relationships Scale” developed by the researchers is used fo data collection. The scale has three sub-dimensions including nine items for “teacher-principal” dimension with the Cronbach alpha reliability α =.83; eight items for “teacher-teacher” dimension with Cronbach alpha reliability α = .70; and 24 items for “teacher- school staff” dimension with the Cronbach alpha reliability α =.88. The total scale reliability coefficient of Cronbach is α=91. The data were analyzed by using SPSS 15.0. Man Whitney-U test was used examine differences between the opinions of elementary and secondary school teachers working relationships. One-way ANOVA was performed to find out the significant differences, whether the working relationship differs in terms of gender and experience. Results and discussion. The results of the study show that there is a positive working relationships in schools from teachers' point of view. A significant difference (U = 10602,50, p<.05), between the opinions of elementary and secondary teachers was found for the “teacher-teacher “ dimension of the scale. This finding indicates that, working relationships in secondary school is more positive compared to elementary schools. A Significant difference (t (287) = 2.00, p < .05) was found between female and male teachers' opinions about working relationships. Female teachers (? = 29) were more positive about the working relationships in schools compared to male teachers (? = 27). There was also a significant differences between the “teacher- all the staff at school” (F(3,275)= 6.183, p<.0125) and “teacher-teacher” (F(3,275)= 7.469, p<.125). Benferroni test was used to test for significant differences between “work experience” groups. Test results has show that for the “teacher-teacher” dimension those who have 31-40 years of experiences (? = 40) are more positive to the working relationships than those 21-30 years (? =28), and 2 years experience (? = 29), and 1 year experience (? = 27). Again for the dimension “teacher- all the staff at school” dimension, those who has 31-40 years of experiences (? = 102) were more positive to the working relationships than those 21-30 years (? = 82), and 11-20 years experience (? = 84), and 1-10 years experience (? = 82). When looked at the working relationships scale as a whole, those with experience of 31-40 years (? =166) were more positive to the working relationships than those 21-30 years (? = 138), and 11-20 years experience (? = 140), and 1-10 years experience (? = 134). In conclusion, working relationships between school principals, teaching and non-teaching staffs need to be improved through improved training and better working conditions, creation of better working environment, use of alternative methods of conflict resolution and balanced school management policies. This will improve the retention of staff, job satisfaction, motivation and quality of teaching and learning in schools. In order to achieve all this, a supportive teaching and learning atmosphere should be created in the school.

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