Strategy, context, and outcomes of competence development of high school principals, a qualitative study

The lack of school principals competencies has made them fail to show capabilities required leading to their poor performance in their managerial and leadership roles. The current paper aims at identifing the strategy, context, and outcomes of competence development of high school principals in Tehran province. This is a qualitative paper based on Grounded theory. Thus, using a targeted approach and applying theoretical saturation criterion, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 individuals (seven expert faculty members specializing in the field of educational management, five educational staff principal in Tehran province and five school principals). The data validity was obtained through two methods for reviewing the participants and reviewing non-participant experts were used in the study. The results of the data analysis during the three stages of open coding, theoretical coding and selective coding represent 12 categories including: the pivotal phenomenon (required knowledge, required attitudes, required skills); strategies (create growth venters, providing direct training, implicit training); context (collaborative work culture, supportive atmosphere, decentralized structure; and outcomes, (improving learning quality, organizational growth, professional development).