Özet:

Summary Taymaz (1994) defines five categories of tasks for school administrators, including services related to (1) personnel, (2) students, (3) instruction, (4) education, and (5) business operations. These tasks are interrelated and quite complicated as school administrators are supposed to create consensus among school community and different groups outside the school. School administrators may face some issues concerning students, teachers, school facilities and equipments. Social, cultural, political and economical characteristics of a school community, school climate and culture, and even their management competences have effects on how administrators perform their roles and deal with a large number of tasks. A number of studies have provided evidence to support this argument (Öğülmüş, 1995; Erol, 1995; Öğülmüş ve Özdemir, 1995; Çelikten, 2001; Semerci ve Çelik, 2002; Güven ve Dönmez, 2002; Çınkır ve Kepenekçi, 2003; Kapçı, 2004; Türkmen, 2004; Kişioğlu, Demirel ve Öztürk, 2005; Özer, 2006). Changes and developments in a society affect the school management or vice versa. Therefore, the problems that school administrators are faced with in schools are continuously changing and increasing. Clarifying and defining these problems is the first and foremost prerequisite to solve these problems. Defining the extent and types of problems from the school personnel's perspective may enhance our ability to deal with management problems in school context. The purpose of this study was to describe the administrative problems in schools from the administrators' perspective. Differences among administrators' views by school type, administrative task, school demographics (time period that a school has been operating), number of teachers in school, number of students in school and, socio-economic status (SES) in school were examined. Method Study Group Study group consisted of 7 pre-school, 440 primary school, 126 general secondary school and 95 vocational high school administrators working in Malatya city centre during 2005-2006 school year. School Management Problems Inventory was sent to all school administrators, but only a total number of 225 inventories returned from 6 preschools, 132 primary schools, 57 general high schools and 30 vocational high schools. Instrument In order to determine the management problems of the schools from the administrators' perspective, The School Management Problems Inventory- SMPI was developed by researchers. The SMPI is a five-point rating scale with 73 items. The SMPI is composed of scales related to school management. Minimum and maximum score values of each scale, factor loadings of the items, and item-test correlation values are presented in the Appendix. The SMPI is composed of five scales including problems related to teachers with 19 items (α=.93), problems related to school climate with 15 items (α=.88), problems related to students with 11 items (α=.87), problems related to management skills with 14 items (α=.88) and problems related to schools' physical environment with 14 items (α=.83). Internal consistency coefficient for the SMPI is .96. Analysis One-Way-ANOVA was used to examine differences in perceived problems by school type, task type, school demographics, number of teachers in school, number of students in school, and socio-economic status. The Levene's Test for Homogeneity was conducted to determine the homogeneity of variances. Kruskal Wallis-H Test was used where homogeneity of variance was not proved. Results and Discussion Findings indicated that school administrators had fewer problems related to teachers, and school climate in pre-schools as compared to primary schools and secondary schools. Secondary school administrators reported more management problems related to teachers and students than other school administrators. These findings may be associated with school size and age-group of students. Administrators' perceptions on problems related to management skills did not differ significantly among different types of schools. Given this result, it can be stated that the school administrators tend to consider other factors as the sources of problems rather than their management skills. Such a view can impede the ways that they employ to cope with management problems. With respect to the problems caused by the schools environment, it was found that these problems were at highest level in primary schools and at minimal level in pre-schools as compared to secondary schools. Principals and assistant principals' perceptions of management problems did not show any significant differences. Teacher, school climate, student, physical environment and management skills related problems tend to increase by school age. In terms of number of teachers, it was found that as teacher population increases, the problems caused by teachers are more likely to occur. Small schools with low teacher population had fewer problems caused by teachers in this study. Likewise, the problems caused by school climate, student population, and management skills increase as teacher population increases. Findings also showed that the problems caused by school climate, teachers, and management skills tend to increase as student population increases. Administrators' perceptions of management problems related to school climate and teachers did not show any significant differences by socio-economic status of the school. However, findings showed that management problems related to students significantly differs by socio-economic status of the school. Student related problems decreases as the socio-economic status of the school increases. This finding suggests that socio-economic status in a school's surrounding community affects the prevalence of the problems related to students. Findings also indicated that schools with low socio-economic had significantly higher management problems related to physical and environment and facilities. This finding is no surprise as parents make donations and other contributions to improve school facilities in high socio-economic status schools. In conclusion, findings suggest that management problems tend to increase by school age and size; as number of students and teachers increase in a school. Management problems also tend increase by level of schooling. Administrators reported more management problems in secondary schools compared to primary schools and pre-schools. It may be interpreted as a personal bias that administrators did not report any significant problems related to their management skills.

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