23. Comperative Education Society in Europe, Athens, Greece, 7 - 10 July 2008, pp.1-11
Leadership is one of the most important elements of the "effective school" concept. In making schools effective, head teachers should have necessary competencies. The purpose of this study is to determine and assess whether or not head teachers are competent enough to carry out their duties effectively and make their schools effective. For this purpose, the study was conducted in six different secondary schools in Trabzon in Turkey. It was a survey study adopting quantitative approach in nature. A Needs Analyze Survey Form (NASF) was applied to 150 teachers and 333 students in these schools. NASF included 21 items measuring the leadership competencies of the head teachers with 6-point Likert scale (No Idea; Very Poor; Poor; Medium; Good; Very Good). The higher the value obtained on an item, the greater the adequacy of the item. The data were analyzed with SPSS program. Cronbach’s alpha established for the reliability of the questionnaire was 0.931. The results of Independent T-Test and One-Way ANOVA showed that there were significantly differences both between the teachers’ and students’ perceptions of the leadership competencies of the head teachers (p<.05) and within the secondary school head teachers’ competencies.