Do Managers See Teachers’ Needs?

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Year-Number: 2021-Volume 13, Issue 3
Yayımlanma Tarihi: 2021-06-04 15:10:19.0
Language : English
Konu : Educational Administration
Number of pages: 649-663
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Abstract

Keywords

Abstract

In this study, “Managerial Support for Employees' Psychological Needs: A Multidimensional Approach” scale developed by Parfyonova et al. (2019) was adapted to Turkish and Turkish culture. Within the scope of the study, it was aimed to reveal the school administrators' management status according to their needs in terms of variables of gender, seniority, school level and number of teachers in the school. At the first stage of the study, confirmatory factor analysis performed to determine the construct validity, the scale; Autonomy support (1-4), competence support (5-17) and relatedness support (18-27) were confirmed as three dimensions and 27 items and to determine the reliability of the scale, Cronbach's Alpha value was examined and the scale was found to be highly reliable. In addition, item total correlation values and Low-High t-test analysis among 27% groups; was carried out within the scope of item analysis. As a result of all analyses, it can be said that “Need-Supportive Management Scale (NSMS)” is adapted in accordance with Turkish culture and can be used in educational organizations. At the last stage of the study, teachers' opinions about need-supportive management were examined. Teachers' views on Need-Supportive management support are moderate in terms of autonomy support, competence support, and relatedness support. In other words, teachers do not think that they have received sufficient support by their administrators.

Keywords


  • One of the latest studies on determining and supporting teacher needs is the "Managerial Support for Employees' Psychological Needs: A Multidimensional Approach" (Parfyonova et al., 2019). In this study, SelfDetermination Theory (SDT) developed by Ryan & Deci, (2000) has been used as a guide, and a set of needs supportive management scales (NSMS) have been created. Ryan & Deci (2000) stated in the self-determination theory that people characteristically have three basic psychological needs (competence, autonomy and relatedness). They argued that meeting the mentioned psychological needs positively affects personal motivation and mental health, while preventing psychological needs leads to a decrease in the level of motivation and well-being of individuals. According to Ryan & Deci (2000), individuals need to be competence, autonomy and relatedness. Autonomy refers to an individual choosing own behaviour, being competent means adapting to the environment, and relatedness means being close to others (Ryan & Deci, 2000). In other words, individuals take action to satisfy these three needs. Failure to satisfy these needs creates lack of motivation (Nayır, 2017). Similar determinations have previously been identified by Hopkins and Stern, (1996) as identifying demands, improving staff competence, emotional support, and tolerating administrative control. However, it was observed that a scale study specifically for teachers was not available in the literature to obtain data on this subject.

  • SDT attempted to explain the level of responsibility and tolerance that people assumed by addressing both passive (ambient motivation) and active (self-induced motivation) issues in the pre-action decisionmaking phase of people. In order to determine this, Ryan & Deci (2000) attempted to determine the social conditions of human behaviour. They claimed that the conditions that support autonomy and competence from these social conditions contribute to the development of the individual, while the conditions that control the behaviour decrease the self-expression behaviour. They also argued that behaviours acquired in social conditions that do not support intrinsic motivation are not permanent. On the other hand, they stated that the conditions in which the needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness are supported reinforce the internalization and integration of behaviour compared to the conditions that do not support these needs.

  • Based on their findings, Parfyonova et al. (2019) stated that it would be a better approach to evaluate the management style that supports autonomy within the scope of a multidimensional structure. They reported that the Need-Supportive Management Scale they obtained was advantageous from the other two scales (the Problems at Work Scale (PWS; Deci, Connell, & Ryan, 1989), and the Work Climate Questionnaire (WCQ; Baard et al., 2004). The first of these advantages is that the scale has the flexibility to be used to

  • Ümit Kahraman & Tamer Sarı & Funda Nayir determine an overall or special support area needed. Secondly, the conditions became distinct thanks to the scale's focus on behaviour, in other words, they minimize the overlap of very close concepts (such as the need for satisfaction) (Parfyonova et al., 2019). In this context, it is thought that the adaptation of the NeedSupportive Management Scale, which is quite up-to-date and functional, to Turkish will contribute to the field. Approach” scale developed by Parfyonova et al. (2019) was adapted to Turkish and Turkish culture. Within the scope of the study, it was aimed to reveal the school administrators' management status according to their needs in terms of variables of gender, seniority, school level and number of teachers in the school. For this purpose, the answers to the following questions have been investigated. 1. Is the adaptation of the Need-Supportive Management Scale to Turkish valid? 2. Is it reliable to adapt the Need-Supportive Management Scale to Turkish? 3. What are the opinions of teachers about need-supportive management? 4. Do teachers' opinions about Need-Supportive management differ significantly based on gender, seniority, school level and number of teachers at school? Method This research is a descriptive research study for adapting the “Need-Supportive Management Scale” to Turkish and determining the perception of management support for teachers' needs. Descriptive studies are studies to reveal existing situations (Büyüköztürk, 2012). Data Collection and Working Group In the study, schools in Denizli province Pamukkale district, in Turkey were visited by researchers and data were collected with the participation of volunteer teachers. 258 teachers participated in the research. In order to perform the confirmatory factor analysis, it is sufficient that the number of participants is more than 5 times the number of items in the scale (Bryman & Cramer, 2001). Since the scale used in the study consisted of 27 items, it was decided that the study group of 258 was suitable for confirmatory factor analysis. Information about the working group of the study is given in Table 1. Table 1. Working Group Variable Category n % Sex

  • The “Need-Supportive Management Scale (NSMS)” was prepared by Parfyonova et al. (2019) based on the self-determination theory. The scale consists of 27 items and 3 sub-dimensions. “Autonomy Support” dimension is 4 items, “Competence Support” dimension is 10 items; “Relatedness Support” dimension consists of 10 items.

  • The development study of the Need-Supportive Management Scale developed with reference to SDT has been evaluated by Parfyonova et al. (2019) with a total of 40 items with 5-7 items per behaviour. The prepared answers were determined as 7-point Likert model (1-Strongly Disagree-7 Strongly Agree). Scale reliability and correlation studies were conducted. 13 items with a relatively low or high average, weak corrected item-total correlation and low item efficacy index were excluded from the study and obtained a scale of 27 items. It was stated that the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) of the scale after Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), two models with 3 and 6 factors were obtained. Although the fit values of the 6-factor model χ2 (309, N = 318) = 681.794, p <.001, CFI = .950, RMSEA = .062, are better, some factor correlation values are close to each other (for example, Expressing Concern and Understanding Emotions, r = .99; Determining Expectations and Providing Feedback, r = .94), because the 6-factor model was considered not to have distinctive validity. Based on the study conducted by Parfyonova et al. (2019), it was stated in this study that the 3-factor model had optimum fit values to the data. Data Analysis

  • The analysis of the data was done using the necessary software programs. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to determine the construct validity of the scale. It is more accurate to perform confirmatory factor analysis without using exploratory factor analysis in adapting the scales, which are prepared in a foreign language and whose dimensions are also determined in the preparation process, to another language. Because confirmatory factor analysis is performed to verify a previously determined structure. Confirmatory factor analysis is sufficient since the factor structure of the scale prepared in a foreign language is determined (Seçer, 2018). In order to test the validity of the criteria, the differences between the item total correlation values and the item average scores of the low-high 27% groups and the results of the unrelated t-test analyses were examined. The reliability of the scale was calculated by Cronbach Alfa (⍺) internal consistency analysis. In order to examine the distribution of data, skewness kurtosis coefficients were examined. In the examination of teachers' Need-Supportive perceptions, t-test was used for the gender variable, ANOVA analysis was used for the variables of seniority, school level and number of teachers in the school. The significance level was taken as .05 in the difference analysis. In the ANOVA analysis, if the difference was significant, the Scheffe test was used because the variances were equal and the group numbers were not equal. when the difference is significant, the effect sizes for the significant difference were calculated. The effect size gives information about the percentage of variability explained by the independent variable and takes values ranging from 0 to 1 (Kilmen, 2015). The exact points for the effect size calculated for the t test and ANOVA are .01- low, .06 medium and .138 high. (Cohen, 1988; as cited in Kilmen, 2015; Arslan, 2019)

  • individual's environmental compliance (Ryan & Deci, 2000). When the items of the scale are taken into

  • Deci, 2000). When the items of the scale are taken into consideration, it can be seen that the dimension of

  • When the findings of the research are examined according to the gender variable, it was revealed that male teachers think that they are supported more by the management in all dimensions. The gender variable has a major impact on all aspects of Need-Supportive management support. In the studies of Nayir (2011) and Gül (2010), it was revealed that the opinions of male teachers regarding the management support are more positive than the opinions of female teachers. Nayir (2011) attributed this situation to the expectations of female teachers and the expectations of male teachers and the fact that there are men in most of the management levels. As a result of more men at the management level, male managers cannot understand women's expectations and as a result, women may feel less management support (Nayır, 2011). However, Kurt (2020), in his study, does not show a significant difference between teachers' opinions about management support according to gender. Considering the dimensions of this study, male teachers have the perception that they are supported more. This is actually an expected situation. In an environment where men are more free and comfortable, can express themselves more easily and managers are generally men, it can be thought that women are treated more distantly. It can be said that social pressure on the relationship of male administrators with female teachers, in particular, caused the administrators to abstain from issues such as providing emotional support to female teachers and guiding them in the works to be done. This may result in female teachers perceiving manager support at a lower level.

  • When it is analyzed according to the seniority variable, it is seen that teachers with higher seniority perceive management support at a lower level and the seniority variable has a great effect on all dimensions of Need-Supportive management support. Similarly, Doğan (2014) has revealed that teachers' opinions about management support are more positive. This may indicate that senior teachers need less support in the school environment, or, it can also be explained by the fact that senior teachers have higher organizational commitment and there is a significant relationship between executive support and organizational commitment, as stated by Kiral (2020). However, Pekdemir, Koçoğlu, & Gürkan, (2013) reported that there was no relationship between executive support and employee seniority.

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