Review Journal "Effectiveness of Supervisions Conducted by Primary Education Supervisors According to School Principals’ Evaluations."

Title : Effectiveness of Supervisions Conducted by Primary Education Supervisors According to School Principals’ Evaluations.

Author : MUSTAFA YAVUZ Selcuk University, Turkey.

Introduction and purposes :

Supervision is a method of teaching staff to act in more conscious ways. Its goal is to provide teachers and supervisors with more information and deeper insights into what is happening around them. This increases the options teachers have as they work with students. If the partnership between supervisors and teachers works, teachers learn to identify and resolve their problems, and supervisors get a better idea about what is happening in different classrooms. This provides supervisors with more opportunities to think about their actions and emotions and to adopt conscious plans to improve the learning situations (Garubo & Rothstein, 1998).

The author conducted a qualitative case study. The population of the study consisted of 8 randomly selected school principals in the area of primary education supervisors working in Konya, a province of the Turkish Republic. Face-to-face and semistructured interviews were held with the school principals within the population for 90 min. The interviews were recorded in writing and analyzed using descriptive analysis. It was determined that school principals did not have adequate knowledge about the criteria by which they were evaluated, that supervision relied heavily on what could be called “document check,” and that they thought supervisors could not perform the roles of orientating, guiding and improving teachers’ educational behavior satisfactorily. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of the supervision process conducted by primary education supervisors in the light of the evaluations of school principals. The population of this study is limited to the principals of primary, boarding primary, private primary, and nursery schools working in Konya, a province of the Turkish Republic.

The theory who supports this journal ,as follow:

-          Supervision is the process of understanding whether organizational

activities comply with the principles and rules determined according to the adopted goals          (Aydın, 1986).

-          Supervision can be defined as the process of supervising carried out by authorities to see whether the work conducted in the public sector or in institutions having a legal entity is performed in line with the existing laws or not (Taymaz, 1982).

Is the journal good or not for us? Why?

Certainly, this journal is good for us because the journal explain more clearly and focus on the topic about supervision . Supervision is a method of teaching staff to act in more conscious ways. Its goal is to provide teachers and supervisors with more information and deeper insights into what is happening around them. This increases the options teachers have as they work with students. If the partnership between supervisors and teachers works, teachers learn to identify and resolve their problems, and supervisors get a better idea about what is happening in different classrooms. This provides supervisors with more opportunities to think about their actions and emotions and to adopt conscious plans to improve the learning situations (Garubo & Rothstein, 1998). The major duty of the supervisor in modern education is to conduct an efficient observation and provide the teacher with necessary conditions in teaching and training activities in order for teaching and training activities in the school to be more effective, ensure cooperation in decision making, and act as a facilitator and guide. So, the reader can easy to get the point of the journal or easy to understand about the article.

Method

Study Group

The study group consisted of school principals who constitute the supervision area of the primary education supervisors in the province of Konya. The province of Konya was purposefully selected because it has all the types of schools in which primary school supervisors supervise, and author work at a university in Konya. The population of the study was determined using the stratified random sampling method. According to this method, the population is divided into strata, and random samples are drawn from each stratum. For this purpose, in order to determine the study group, first, types of schools (nursery schools, primary schools, private primary schools, and boarding primary schools) that were supervised by primary school supervisors were determined, and then eight school principals were randomly selected.

Data Collection

In order to ensure the validity of the interview form, author consulted the opinions of six instructorswith doctorates working at Selcuk University’s Department of Educational Sciences. After getting expert opinions, author conducted a pilot study. Depending on the feedback, necessary corrections were made, and I held semistructured interviews with the selected school principals for a period of 90 min. The interviews were face to face.

Data Analysis

Author recorded the interviews in writing and analyzed them using the descriptive analysis method. Direct quotations are frequently used in the descriptive analysis method in order to reveal the interviewees’ ideas clearly, and comments are made on them. The purpose of such an analysis is to present the obtained findings in an orderly and interpreted manner. To this end, the data were first described in a logical and intelligible manner. Afterwards, these descriptions were interpreted, cause and effect relationships were analyzed, and some conclusions were drawn (Yıldırım&S¸ ims¸ek, 2005). This research realized six stages, including data transcription; the construction of a thematic framework within which key concepts and themes were examined and referenced; indexing, which imparted the mechanism for labeling the data into manageable sections; charting, which consisted of lifting the data and rearranging them according to the predesigned themes; and mapping, which involved the interpretation of the data set in combining the emerging themes with the initial research questions. The final stage was one of reporting the conclusions of the research (Ritchie & Spencer, 1994).

Results

Need for Supervisors

School principals almost unanimously agree that supervision should be conducted by supervisors as it is now. Only one school principal separated supervision of teachers from supervision of principals by saying, School principals can implement teachers’ supervision provided that they increase their proficiency. Principals, on the other hand, must be evaluated by supervisors as in the case now. (7, 20, M) The school principals wanted to be supervised; however, they also made several suggestions regarding how this supervision should be conducted. Some of their recommendations included: supervision boards should work independently rather than under the control of Provincial Directorates of The National Education, the supervisor’s residence should be in his or her area of responsibility, the selection criteria for supervision boards should be clearly specified, the duration of supervision should be extended and achievements measured, and the consultation of school stakeholders during the supervision of teachers should be enacted.

According to the results of the study conducted by Yavuz

(2006), supervisors found principals incompetent in the following

topics:

1. keeping track of the academic achievements of students

in secondary schools after they have graduated from the

school,

2. determining the school’s future objectives and policy,

3. keeping themselves updated on recent research about education

and training processes,

4. creating an atmosphere that supports students’ leadership

characteristics,

5. determining the school’s educational objectives together

with teachers, parents, and students, and

6. involving all the parties at the school in the decisionmaking

process.

The research findings indicate that the topics that supervisors found inadequate were different from the topics on which they focused most during the supervision process. According to the feedback of the principals, supervisors focus on document checking rather than educational topics about which they found principals incompetent. A possible explanation for this dilemma could be that supervisors regard themselves as insufficient regarding education and training. This view was supported by one principal who suggested that “supervisors also lack knowledge on issues about which we are ignorant” (5, 20, M). Although school principals have some negative evaluations about the process of supervision, they demand that supervision be conducted by supervisors. This indicated that principals interviewed for this project want their suggestions to be taken into account and the supervision process to continue in its present form.

Suggestions

Suggestions made on the basis of the findings obtained

from the study are listed as the following:

1. The duration of supervision should be extended.

2. Parents’, teachers’, and students’ views should also be taken during the process of supervisors’ evaluation.

3. Teachers’ supervisions should be conducted by supervisors within the same branch as that of the teachers.

4. School principals’ views should also be taken into consideration during teachers’ supervision.

5. Supervisors should reside in the area in which they supervise.

6. Supervisors should be provided with the opportunity to do postgraduate studies.

7. Inservice programs should be organized for supervisors.

8. Issues of education and training should be highlighted during the supervision.

9. Communication should be improved between supervisors and principals.