A Comparison of Cultural and Efficiency Levels in State and Private Primary Schools
Öz
Summary School culture and effectiveness are very important indicators to understand school administration. School culture is composed of ideas, values, hypotheses, beliefs and manners that hold school together. School culture reflects a school's philosophy that each school has a different identity. School's philosophy has to be coherent and consistent with societal values and overall educational philosophy of the government. This consistency and coherence depend on teachers' and administrators' perception of school mission and culture. School effectiveness helps us understand what kind of inputs, climates, providing conditions, teaching-learning process, and outputs schools have. The schools can represent their authentic characteristics and carry out best management styles and effective works in school based approach (MacBeath and Mortimore, 2001). Private schools like public ones can be regarded as in a better position in the implementation of effectiveness. Besides, being independent in private schools with more competitiveness and market oriented schools is in the competition of offering best service to the students and consequently to their parents. Having autonomous structures in the management of schools increases their effectiveness (MacBeath and MacCall 2000, Bedi and Garg, 2000). The purpose of this research is to describe the cultural and effectiveness levels of the state and private primary schools according to the teachers' perception. Associations between cultural dimensions and effectiveness are examined. Method A descriptive research is used to collect data through survey. Study group is composed of 190 teachers from three randomly selected private primary schools and three randomly selected public schools in Gebze district of Kocaeli province. Organizational Culture questionnaire was adapted to primary schools by the researchers. Also, the survey of effectiveness was used to describe the levels of effectiveness. The answers to the questionnaire were examined generally and later analyzed as for dimensions, means, frequencies and the percentages. The correlation among the dimensions was analyzed by determining their effectiveness levels after t-tests and ANOVA tests about gender and other factors. The questionnaires are composed of 54 likert type items for cultural dimensions and 70 likert items for effectiveness levels. Answers to the questions below are sought in this research. 1. What is teachers' perception of organizational culture and its dimension in private primary schools and public primary schools? 2. What is teachers' perception of effectiveness level dimension in private primary schools and public primary schools? 3. Is there a correlation between cultural dimensions and effectiveness levels in terms of teachers' perception? Result and Discussions The schools have good indicators (?=3.39) in the general dimension of the organizational culture when private primary schools and state primary schools are compared according to the dimensions of organizational culture as to the findings in Table 2. Teacher's involvement levels in the practices of general dimension of the organizational culture are ?=3.56 in the state primary schools and ?=3.71 in the private primary schools. Generally, private schools have better indicators than the state schools in the dimensions of organizational culture. However, the equal indicator levels are seen for both schools in the dimensions of “work atmosphere- adapting to the changes” (?=3.63). General evaluation on the five main dimensions and related sub-dimensions of the effective schools shows that the whole of the schools participated in the research are effective with the good average of ?=3.48 (S=.60). However, according to the teacher's perceptions, all of the state primary schools are medium effective with the mean levels of ?=3.22 (S=.94), but the private primary schools are more effective with the mean levels of ?=3.78 (S=.95). In other words, private primary schools are more effective by depending on teacher opinions mean levels on the all dimensions and general results of effective schools. Reliability test results support this opinion. Thereupon, reliability alpha coefficient correlation is found as .94 for all of the state schools and as .95 for the private schools. The culture and effectiveness levels of the schools are evaluated reciprocally with the results of correlation tests in these dimensions for the schools. As it is seen on Table 4, a low significant positive relation is found in the levels of the inputs for effective schools and the management of organizational culture (r=0.156; p=0.046), in commitment to the organization- identification with the organization (r=0.213; p=0.006), in ceremonies-meetings-language-physical elements (r=0.208; p=0.008), and in general atmosphere of the culture (r=0.177; p=0.024). Conclusion The findings on the research of the effectiveness levels of primary schools reveal that the private primary schools are more effective than the state primary schools on the five main dimensions and their sub-dimensions of effective schools i.e., “school inputs, school climate, conditions, learning and teaching process and the results of learning and teaching process. (State Schools(?General=3.22); Private Schools (?General =3.78)). Findings on the research of the organizational culture of the primary schools reveal that private primary schools have better cultural characteristic levels than the state primary schools on the six dimensions of the organizational culture “management, commitment to the organization-identification with the organization, work atmosphere-adapting to the changes, reward system, collaboration-communication, ceremonies, meetings, language and physical cultural elements” (State Schools; ?General =3.56); (Private Schools; ?General =3.71).
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Resmi ve Özel İlköğretim Okullarının Kültür ve Etkililik Düzeylerinin Karşılaştırılması
Öz
Bu araştırmada, resmi ve özel ilköğretim okullarının kültür ve etkililik düzeylerinin, öğretmen algılarına göre değerlendirilmesi ile resmi ve özel ilköğretim okullarının etkililik ve kültür düzeylerinin karşılaştırılması amaçlanmaktadır. Tarama türü olan bu araştırmanın evrenini, Kocaeli ili Gebze ilçesi ilköğretim okullarında görev yapan öğretmenler oluşturmaktadır. Bu Evrenden yansız örnekleme yoluyla sosyo-ekonomik bölgeler dikkate alınarak 3 resmi, 3 özel ilköğretim okulu seçilmiştir. Bu okullarda görev yapan 104 resmi okul öğretmeni ve 86 özel okul öğretmeni araştırmaya katılmıştır. Öğretmenlere okullarının, kültür ve etkililik düzeylerini değerlendirmeleri için “örgüt kültürü ve etkili okul” ölçekleri dağıtılmıştır. Veriler, frekans, standart sapma, aritmetik ortalama ve cronbach alpha değerleri; korelasyon katsayısı sonuçları dikkate alınarak yorumlanmıştır. Araştırmanın bulguları, resmi ve özel ilköğretim okullarında güçlü bir örgüt kültürünün olduğunu; özel okulların resmi okullara göre daha güçlü bir örgüt kültürüne sahip olduğunu; özel ilköğretim okullarının resmi ilköğretim okullarına göre etkili okul boyutlarında, daha etkili olduğunu ortaya çıkarmaktadır. Ayrıca araştırma bulguları, örgüt kültürü ve okul etkililiğinin bazı boyutları arasında düşük düzeyde ve anlamlı ilişkilerin olduğunu ortaya çıkarmıştır.
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