Journal of School administration
Volume:11 Issue: 2, Spring 2023

The present research was conducted with the aim of expressing the challenges of transformational leaders in schools. The approach of the current research is qualitative and the strategy used is narrative research.The researched population was all school principals of Kermanshah city.Sampling was purposeful and 13 people were studied until reaching theoretical saturation. Data collection was semi-structured interview and document review. Validation in the present research was examined and confirmed based on the process of verifiability, transferability, believability and reliability. The analysis showed that the challenges of transformational leaders in schools include different aspects. The participants reflected the challenges in the form of challenges of different definitions and perceptions, the need for capabilities and competences, and finally structural challenges, and these results were drawn in three graphs. Challenges related to the definition and characteristics include the following: common goals, planning, creating a professional work team, creating change and transformation and inspiring employees. In the challenges related to the necessary competencies of transformational leaders, we also found five main categories including: scientific support, emotional support, clear and two-way communication, organizational foresight, creating a creative and dynamic environment.In the structural challenges faced by transformational leaders, we also found four categories including: organizational issues, individual issues, socio-cultural issues and lack of resources and facilities.

The purpose of this research is meta-analysis of the factors related to the philosophical mindset of students based on the researches published in the last 10 years. The population of this research is all the researches published in scientific journals. The sampling method was based on the Purposive sampling method. In this way, out of the total number of researches, which was 13, 3 of the researches were excluded due to reasons such as incompleteness of statistical information. In fact, studies that reported the necessary information and used correct statistical tests were selected, and studies that did not report the necessary information were excluded. The statistical sample is based on the researches that have been carried out on the factors related to the philosophical mindset of students, and their number is 10 researches (14 factors). In order to select studies suitable for meta-analysis and extract appropriate information, meta-analysis checklists were used. These checklists include researchers' names, research title, year of publication, place of implementation, statistical population and sample size, gender, educational level, research tools, reliability and significance level. CMA3 software was used to analyze the results. According to the research results, the effect size and Z calculated for 12 variables out of 14 variables are significant. Also, the largest effect size is related to t self-direction , creativity ,also the smallest effect size is related to mathematical self-efficacy and problem solving . Also, the effect size for all studies in the fixed and random model is at a high level.

The current study explained the structural relationship between readiness for change, social capital, and teachers' tendency to participate. The current research was applied in terms of purpose and was a correlation type in descriptive-survey research. This study's statistical population includes all education teachers in Fars province in 2021-22, and 500 were selected using random class sampling. The research tool included three questionnaires on readiness for organizational change, the tendency to participate, and social capital, which were distributed and collected after calculating validity and reliability. This research showed 1) a positive and significant relationship between teachers' perception of social capital and teachers' tendency to participate and 2) a positive and significant relationship between teachers' readiness for change and their tendency to participate.  In addition, the simultaneous relationship between readiness for change and social capital with teachers' tendency to participate concluded that the variable of readiness for change is a positive and significant predictor of the tendency to participate, but social capital does not significantly predict the tendency to participate

This study is practical in terms of purpose, and descriptive correlational in terms of method. The statistical population includes all teachers from second normal secondary schools in the first and second districts of Sanandaj city during the academic year of 2021-2, totalling 686 individuals. A sample size of 343 was selected using a simple random sampling method. Data was collected through three questionnaires: The 10-Item Ethical Leadership Scale by Brown and Trevino (2005), The 12-Item Collective Efficacy Questionnaire by Goddard (2001), and The 9-Item Questionnaire by Schaufeli et al. (2002) utilizing a five-point Likert scale. The face validity of the questionnaires was confirmed through expert opinions, while their construct validity was established by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). To ensure questionnaire reliability, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was utilized. The resulting reliability coefficients for the ethical leadership, self-efficacy, and job involvement questionnaires were 0.91, 0.72, and 0.93, respectively. After verifying that the parametric assumptions were met, the data was analysed using Pearson’s correlation test and structural equation modelling via SPSS software. The results revealed a favourable fit for the research’s structural model, indicating a direct relationship between the ethical leadership style of school managers and teachers’ collective efficacy and job involvement. Furthermore, the ethical leadership status of school managers emerged as a significant predictor for teachers’ levels of collective efficacy and job involvement. These findings suggest that demonstrating ethical leadership behaviours can enhance teachers’ self-efficacy, thereby fostering greater passion and job involvement among them

The present study aimed to determining the role of senior high schools in the preparation of students to transfer to university. By using an exploratory mixed method approach, we combined qualitative content analysis with descriptive quantitative method. In the qualitative part, the study population includes 9929 senior high school teachers of Tabriz and 891 professors of Tabriz University, and in the quantitative part, it includes 2013 students of Tabriz University in the academic year 2019-2020. The participants of the qualitative part are 16 people and the quantitative part is 325 people based on the Krejcie- Morgan, which was selected by simple random sampling. In order to collect data in the qualitative part, a semi-structured interview, and in the quantitative part, a researcher-made questionnaire based on the findings of the qualitative part was used. The reliability of the quantitative part by using the internal reliability of 0.93. For data analysis, colaizzi's method analysis was used in the qualitative part,and descriptive and inferential statistics tests (Friedman's ranking and sample TT) were used in the quantitative part. Based on qualitative findings, the role of senior high schools in preparing students for transfer to university included academic adaptation, environmental adaptation, individual-emotional adaptation, pre-transitional preparation, and organizational-managerial factors of educational system. The findings of the quantitative part from perspective of the first-year students, indicated status quo of organizational-managerial factors of educational system, pre-transitional preparation, and individual-emotional adaptation was unfavorable while factors of academic and environmental adaptation had moderate situation. According to the results of Friedman test, environmental adaptation was in the highest rank followed by academic adaptation, organizational-managerial factors of educational system, individual-emotional adaptation, and pre-transitional preparation in the next ranks. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods, in this study, caused different aspects of preparing students for transfer to university through senior high schools were identified, and finally, solutions for preparing students to university were presented.

The study aimed to investigate effective accountability among public school administrators and identify a model for achieving it. A qualitative phenomenological research method was used, with an applied purpose. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 20 experts in the field of school principal accountability. Participants were selected using purpose-based sampling and saturation law principles. Qualitative data analysis involved three stages of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding, using stepwise methods and analytical techniques. Six inclusive themes emerged as constituting the effective response pattern of school administrators: financial dimension (major benefits, financial justification), moral dimension (ethicalism, education), cultural dimension (organizational culture, employee culture, culture society), administrative dimension (administrative structure, accountability process), strategic dimension (transformationism, responsive leadership), and educational dimension (organizational, individual). Overall, the study provides insight into how school administrators can be held accountable effectively.Keywords: Effective Accountability, Schools, Managers, Qualitative Study.

Research aims to identify barriers and problems in educational strategies implementation in schools. The current study is qualitative with an interpretive phenomenological approach. For the interview, the participants were selected by the purposive sampling method. The criteria for participating in the interview were managers' willingness to express their opinions on the research subject. The sampling process ended when data saturation was reached during the interview. Paul Colaizzi's method was used for data analysis. First, analysis data collection was continued until saturation. Several vital sentences were extracted and formulated. Participants' opinions were kept, making data reliability and their ability to be verified possible. After analyzing the findings, school problems and barriers were categorized into four categories: financial and credit, human resources, system problems, and multiple tasks. Components: lack of per capita, wear and tear of buildings, equipment, a debt of energy carriers, lack of allocation of specialized teachers, new teachers, reduction of cooperation and assistance of parents, forced teaching of administrative staff, the unwillingness of students, lack of allocation of staff based on the organizational chart, The number of sites and their continuous changes, textbook registration system, pre-registration, the existence of various projects and ceremonies, repetitive and voluminous circulars, intervention of unrelated organizations and departments were among the most critical challenges of school management

The present review aims at designing and validating a model of Professional Learning Community for the technical and vocational schools of the upper secondary level.This research is conducted through a qualitative approach and applies the method of Grounded Theory. A Targeted Selection approach was applied for selecting the documents, including all academic sources related to the subject, which constituted the research statistical population of the study. Sixty titles were selected. In addition, Chain Sampling, one of the methods of Targeted Sampling was applied to select the individuals for the interviews and validation sections. Using the Theoretical Saturation method, seventeen individuals for designing the model and for the first phase of validation and forty-two individuals for the second phase of the validation (which assesses the extent to which the model can be executed) participated. Also, the data collection methods employed in each phase included a Semi-Structured Interview for the first phase and a Researcher-Made Questionnaire for the second phase. For analyzing the documents, Qualitative Content Analysis and for analyzing the interview transcripts Inductive Analysis and the coding of Grounded Theory was applied. The results demonstrated that the structure of the professional learning community includes 21 elements that were identified. The model is delineated in 5 steps Plan, Establish, Implement, Modify and Assess, and is validated in two phases. Validation results illustrated a remarkable degree of consistency between the interviewees in the first (structure and elements of the model) and the second (the degree to which the model is executable) phases