Exploring the Professional Competencies of High School Principals: The Results of a Mixed Method Study

The present research aims in comparing professional competencies of principals in public and nonpublic high schools in Shahriar city and suggesting some solutions in order to improve them. Research method, depending on the type of data, is mixed method of successive; therefore, quantitative and qualitative research methods are used in this research. In qualitative phase, fifteen educational experts were selected using purposeful sampling method. Research population in quantitative part includes all teachers of high schools in shahriar city in academic year of 1394-93 over 950 teachers, among which, 275 teachers were selected by Cochran formula. Stratified sampling with proportional allocation was used as sampling method. Semi structured interview for principals and researcher-made questionnaire were used for data collection. Validity type of qualitative part is content validity and expert opinion; furthermore, colleague reviewing and validity of quantitative part provide construct validity. Questionnaire reliability was measured as 0.913. Results showed that professional competencies of principals include psychological traits, skills (technical, humane and conceptual) knowledge and attitude. Analysis of quantitative data showed that status of public and nonpublic high schools managers was assessed as moderate and supposed average. Also findings show that significant difference (P≥0.05) doesn’t exist between these two groups on professional competencies. Providing teachers with training software and pamphlets is a suggested solution for improving principals’ professional competencies.