Relationship between the Instructional Leadership Behaviors of High School Principals and Teachers’ Organizational Commitment

Abstract

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the relationship between the instructional leadership  behaviors of high school principals and teachers’ perceptions of organizational commitment and to test the extent to which instructional leadership behaviors predict organizational commitment. The study is designed in relational method. The population comprised of secondary school teachers working at public schools located in the European side of Istanbul in 2014-2015 school year. The sampling of the study consists of 441 voluntary teachers from 28 different schools selected by means of simple random sampling method. The data of the study were collected through “School Principals’ Instructional Leadership Questionnaire” developed by Şişman (1997) and “Organizational Commitment Scale” developed by Balay (2000). Whether the distribution of the collected data is normal or not was tested using histogram, Q-Q graphs and coefficient of skewness and kurtosis. As the distribution was found to be normal, parametric tests were used. The relationship between instructional leadership behaviors and organizational commitment was analyzed with Pearson-product moment correlation analysis and the extent to which instructional behaviors predict organizational commitment was investigated with multiple linear regression analysis. The findings of the study revealed that the principals most display instructional leadership behaviors involved in the dimension of setting and sharing of school goals and least display the instructional leadership behaviors encompassed by the dimension of supporting and developing teachers. The organizational commitment of the teachers was found to be little at “compliance” dimension and to be medium at “identification” and “internalization” dimensions. As for the adaptation dimension, negative correlation was found between the principals’ instructional leadership behaviors and the teachers’ organizational commitment and for identification and internalization dimensions, positive and significant correlation was found between the principals’ instructional leadership behaviors and the teachers’ organizational commitment. It was also found that the “establishment of a well-organized instructional environment and climate” dimension of instructional leadership behaviors significantly predicts the sub-dimensions of organizational commitment.

Keywords: leadership behaviors, organizational commitment, high school principals, high school teachers