The Problems of School Administrators Scale

This study aims to develop a standardized data collection tool to identify the problems of school administrators. In the research conducted with the survey design, data were collected from 709 school administrators to develop the problems of school administrators scale. In this study, a theoretical framework was created according to the findings of the relevant studies and the scale of determining the problems of school administrators was developed. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were done. According to the results, the problems of school administrators scale is a valid and reliable data collection tool that consists of 44 items and 8 dimensions. The scale can determine the problems of school administrators related to workload, personal rights, school administration, school climate, respect, education system, organizational commitment, and violence. With the Problems of School Administrators Scale, the level of problems can be determined, and necessary measures can be taken. If the scale can be applied in different regions at the same time, comparisons between regions can be made and attempts can be made to ensure equal opportunity

4 chool success is closely related to its administrators. The goals and methods determined by the manager for success also affect the other employees of the organization. Many factors related to success, such as the formation of competition between teachers and students on success, the discovery of individual talents, the design of the most appropriate educational processes for students, and the creation of classes, are shaped by the decisions of school administrators. Also, the ability of administrators to establish relationships with students, teachers and the environment means that the school turns into an institution that allows students to develop socially as well as academically. The school, which is in contact with the society, determines the needs and values of the society better and accurately by the teachers, thus creating an educational institution aimed at raising individuals suitable for the needs of the society. Effective management is required for this.
Many problems are encountered in ensuring effective management. When the literature is examined, it is stated that school administrators have problems related to workload, personal rights, school management, school climate, respect, education system, organizational commitment, and being exposed to violence. However, it can be said that related studies focus on one or a few problems and are mostly based on qualitative data that cannot be generalized. A standardized scale is needed to examine all problems at the same time, to quantify their degrees, and to reach generalizable results. This study aims to develop a standardized data collection tool to identify the problems of school administrators. In this study, a theoretical framework was created according to the findings of the relevant studies ( Figure 1). Later, the scale of determining the problems of school administrators was developed to determine the problem areas related to workload, personal rights, school management, school climate, respect, education system, organizational commitment, and violence. In the following sections of the study, the findings of the researches that are the basis of the theoretical framework are presented according to the problem areas and the development steps of the scale are explained. Figure 1. The research framework (generated by the author)

Workload
Since school administrators have more responsibilities, their workload is high. School administrators have so many responsibilities that new administrators are shocked (Spillane & Lee, 2014). School administrators have duties such as ensuring the functioning of schools in line with the objectives, creating environments that will develop students physically, psychologically, and socially, ensure coordination of teachers, ensure building security, solve school needs within the budget, and establish communication between the school and the family. Many processes carried out by separate departments in other organizations are entirely under the responsibility of administrators in schools. Şahin (2011) states that school administrators experience stress arising from workload even when they are most successful, and they often have to spend time outside of their shifts to overcome this stress. So, the administrators try to finish their jobs by staying at school too Bureaucracy, shortage of resources, and poverty are the problems that managers complain about most (Sincar, 2013). In school management, student and technical problems create short-term problems, personnel, and parentsoriented problems are medium-term, organizational structure and policybased problems create long-term problems (Döş, Sağır, & Çetin, 2015). The infrastructure of the school, its stakeholders, education policies, management, and financial problems are the problems that administrators care about most (Karaköse, Yirci, & Kocabaş, 2014). The influx of immigrants in recent years in Turkey has affected the school management. School administrators state that they mostly experience communication, adaptation, absenteeism, psychological and financial problems regarding Syrian immigrant students (Toker Gökçe & Acar, 2018). Another problem faced by school administrators is the physical conditions of the school and what level of education the school provides. Administrators stated that physical conditions are insufficient in most of the schools (Pamuk & Kiraz, 2016). Old schools have financial and planning problems. No matter how well educated they are, school administrators may not have the skills to identify problems related to financial planning and physical conditions (Balyer, 2013). There are also problems in strategic planning (Arslan & Küçüker, 2016). School administrators have a role in coping with inadequate teachers (Wragg, Haynes, Wragg, & Chamberlin, 1999). Administrators stated that teachers who have insufficient professional knowledge, and who tend to cause problems due to their characteristics cause more problems than others (Erdoğan & Demirkasımoğlu, 2016).

School Climate
School administrators also encounter problems related to the school climate. It is also stated in the literature that many problems related to school climate are experienced in schools (Taşdan, Tösten, Bulut, & Karakaya, 2013). It has been determined that school administrators have problems in communication with parents, teacher qualification and rotation, physical and financial opportunities (Polat & Arslan, 2017). The harsh attitudes of some administrators can cause negative reactions in students, teachers, employees, and parents. In addition to the "I know the best, I have the authority" and 8 similar approaches, the indecisive and inconsistent behaviors of some administrators affect the whole school climate negatively (Ok, 2006). Administrators stated that they had problems in school-family relationships (Özer, Demirtaş, & Ateş, 2015;Porsuk & Kunt, 2012). Monitoring the appropriateness of school-family unity and other school activities, understanding the situation of families, and obtaining their approval are among the activities of administrators (Çalışkan & Ayık, 2015). Although the parent-teacher association is a bridge between school and parents, the attitude of school administrators has a very important role in the effectiveness of this communication. Administrators state that students have disciplinary problems due to their families' attitudes (Sadık & Öztürk, 2018). School climate predicts the effectiveness of the school (Şenel & Buluç, 2016). Therefore, creating a positive climate should be among the priorities of school administrators. Considering that there is a relationship between school climate and leadership (Şentürk & Sağnak, 2012), problems in school climate can be overcome with the leadership of school administrators. School administrators stated that they should create a healthy school climate by solving problems themselves, taking measures to prevent problems from occurring, and preventing stress (Turan, Yıldırım, & Aydoğdu, 2012). Communication problems within the organization need to be easily identified and solved, staff should fulfill their duties effectively, and the school should have a cleaner environment (Babaoğlan, Nalbant, & Çelik, 2017).
Communication requires the establishment of a correct network and the correct transmission of messages along with leadership skills (Çalışkan & Ayık, 2015). Communication is important not only for socializing but also for the correct understanding of problems and on-site intervention. It should not be forgotten that guidance services are also provided in schools for many reasons such as discovering students' abilities and supporting their psychological development. In cases where counseling service is not sufficient, many problems such as violence, low achievement, and bullying can easily arise at school. For this reason, school administrators have duties to control and motivate psychological development and counselling services (Apaydın & Çakır, 2016).

Respect
The respect of their ideas and the way others implement their decisions are closely related to the leadership skills of managers. Leaders are naturally people who are respected and followed. Teachers state that leadership of school administrators is one of the most important factors affecting the success of education (Babaoğlan, Nalbant, & Çelik, 2017). If school administrators, teachers, and other school staff are respected by students, parents, and society, their self-confidence increases, and motivation can be provided within the organization (Çiçek Sağlam & Emirbey, 2017). Appreciation and respect are the external factors that motivate school administrators the most (Yıldırım, 2011). School administrators attach importance to respect (Aladağ & Akyol, 2017). Administrators and teachers see respect as an important element of school culture (Aslan, Özer, & Bakır, 2009). Teachers expect school administrators to create an environment based on respect (Aslanargun, 2015;Özel, 2014). However, motivational ways such as salary, promotion, authorization, participation in decision making, job enrichment cannot be provided by school administrators (Çiçek Sağlam & Emirbey, 2017). Failure of school administrators to successfully realize the factors that will increase teachers' motivation may decrease the rate of respect and compliance of other employees towards themselves. It should not be forgotten that the attitudes and behaviors of those who carry out this duty also affect determining the respect and love felt towards school administrators. Attitudes and behaviors following ethical and moral rules make it possible for school administrators to be accepted, included in social relations, and respected within the society and organization, as is the case with all employees. For this reason, an educational administrator is expected to understand and apply professional ethics rules, as well as to understand the society and to analyze their value judgments. This situation can turn into a source of stress as well as the workload of managers (Argon, Çelik-Yılmaz, & İsmetoğlu, 2017).

Education system
It has been determined in studies that school administrators have problems with the education system (Aslanargun & Bozkurt, 2012;Cerit, Akgün, Yıldız, & Soysal, 2014;Demirtaş, Üstüner, & Özer, 2007;Ekinci, 2010). Demirtaş, Üstüner, and Özer (2007) underline that the problems faced by school administrators may arise from changes between schools, students, and parents. The authors argue that the facilities of the schools, the educational and cultural structures of parents and students, their economic conditions, and many demographic and physical characteristics related to this should be evaluated separately for each school. The authors, who emphasize that a school will have problems within the scope of its possibilities and that financial problems will be experienced, and that the expectations of parents and students from education and their participation in the school can also have an effect on creating and managing the system (Demirtaş, Üstüner, & Özer, 2007).
School administrators do not have the goal of increasing profitability. Schools are not institutions that can finance themselves. School principals must complete the shortcomings and create a healthy education environment. Schools must have economic opportunities for the efficiency of education and training, the implementation of innovations, and achieving goals. Many details such as application areas, educational materials, cleaning, and environmental planning have to be used to support the mental and physical development of students (Yunas, 2014). At this point, school administrators are expected to identify deficiencies and needs, rank priorities, to make the right purchases, and to allocate the budget according to the needs. It is also essential to be transparent and ready to be accountable at all times. School administrators usually have to deal with all of them at the same time, although each of them requires separate training and experience (Mpolokeng, 2011;Wise, 2015). Administrators state that they are experiencing serious economic difficulties in their schools as the funds given by the government are insufficient (Özer, Demirtaş & Ateş, 2015;Tosun & Filiz, 2017). It is stated that the demands for meeting the expenses of the schools are not fulfilled by the senior management (Altunay, 2017). The cooperation of schools with municipalities is also not sufficient to solve economic problems (Özdoğan Özbal, 2017).
School administrators' values affect their perception of problems and their management style (Law, Walker, & Dimmock, 2003). Centralization in the education system prevents school administrators from seeing every problem and causes communication problems between teachers, parents, employees, students, and the school administrators. Moreover, this situation affects the job satisfaction of other individuals working in the school and causes the problems between the administrators and the employees. The statements made by the top administrators of the ministry also cause the school administrators to have problems (Akçadağ, 2013). Changing education policies, laws, and legal gaps can cause difficulties for managers in terms of appointment and relocation regulations (Balyer, 2013).

Organizational commitment
The problems faced by school administrators damage their organizational commitment. Due to the multiplicity of problems, managers are getting colder from the profession, and the willingness of managers to leave increases (Bayar, 2016). The positive social interaction, safety, human resources, school management style, and financial resources of the school ensure organizational commitment by affecting the attitudes of school administrators towards the profession and school (Liu & Bellibaş, 2018). Only a few studies address the organizational commitment levels of administrators (Akar, 2014). While in most of these studies it was determined that school administrators had problems with organizational commitment (Akar, 2014;Bozdemir & Yolcu, 2014;Çelikten & Çanak, 2014;Nayir, 2013), it was determined that they did not experience any problems in one study (Aksanaklu & İnandı, 2018). It is claimed that the efforts of school administrators to solve the problems they encounter are directly proportional to organizational commitment (Bozdemir & Yolcu, 2014). School administrators' lack of organizational commitment may cause them not to make enough effort to solve problems in other areas.
To increase the organizational commitment of school administrators, they should be supported, should work in a comfortable and peaceful environment, their ideas should be valued, their complaints should be listened to, and their success should be rewarded (Çelikten & Çanak, 2014). If school administrators think they are cared, the organizational commitment of administrators may increase (Karaköse & Bozgeyikli, 2012). On the contrary, mobbing, on the other hand, harms organizational commitment (Aküzüm & Oral, 2015;Cemaloğlu, 2014).
There is a significant relationship between school administrators' personality traits and organizational commitment (Ayık, Savaş, & Yücel, 2015;Shabahang & Amani, 2016). School administrators' organizational commitment levels also determine the relationships between teachers and other employees within the organization. With the creation of an effective communication environment, all other school staff, students, and parents will participate in the education process, which may mean more successful results in the future (Babaoğlan, Nalbant, & Çelik, 2017).

Violence
In schools, various factors such as the age of students, the education and economic status of their families, and the prevalence of domestic violence may have an effect on the frequency of violence from students by students, teachers, and even school administrators. When students feel under pressure or depending on their upbringing, they can be prone to violence and harm both themselves and their environment. At this point, school administrators have to take additional measures to prevent violence and bullying and also prevent them from being exposed to violence. The presence of violence is unacceptable in environments such as schools where education and training are carried out together (Hoşgörür & Orhan, 2017). However, administrators state that they experience problems due to violence in their schools (Bayar, 2016). Although it is the administrators' responsibility to combat violence in the school (Bartsch & Cheurprakobkit, 2002), what needs to be done to ensure school safety exceeds the authority of school administrators and falls under the authority of the top management (Yıldırım, Akan, & Çiftçi, 2018).
School safety is an important variable for effective schools (Çobanoğlu & Badavan, 2017). School administrators encounter disciplinary problems at a moderate level (Vatansever Bayraktar & Kaya, 2017). The first step that school administrators must take to prevent violence is to enable mutual communication skills between teachers, students, and parents. However, managers who are caught in a busy workload, and other problems may not always have enough patience to accomplish this. This situation may also cause the principals to verbally or physically apply violence against others. It should not be forgotten that principals are likely to be both the victims and the perpetrators of violence (Tumwine, 2014).

Research design
The research is in a survey design. With the survey design, the perceptions and attitudes of a large sample can be demonstrated with standard data collection tools with proven validity and reliability, and thus generalizable results can be obtained (Christensen, Johnson, & Turner, 2013). When the data is collected at once, it is cross-sectional, and when it is collected multiple times over larger periods, longitudinal surveying is performed (Fraenkel, Wallen, & Hyun, 2012, p.394). In this study, data were collected by crosssectional surveying.

Participants
All school administrators working in a city of Turkey in the spring term of 2018 were reached without taking a sample. Since the research employs online survey design, a sampling technique would reduce maximum participants. The city was chosen due to the high problems in its schools (Karacabey & Boyacı, 2018). The Ministry of National Education sent an official letter to all schools and invited the administrators to participate in the research. A total of 751 administrators among 5624 school administrators working in the official primary, secondary and high schools in the city during the 2017-2018 academic year have volunteered. When the incorrectly filled forms were eliminated, the remaining 709 administrators were among the participants of the study. The statistics of the participants are presented in Table 1. 532 (75%) of the administrators are men and 177 (25%) are women. Responses to management seniority vary between 0 and 32 years. Responses to the education seniority vary between 0 and 39 years. The answers are given to the number of students in the school also ranged from 12 to 3680. 29 (4.1%) of the administrators work in kindergarten, 300 (42.3%) in primary school, 219 (30.9%) in secondary school, 161 (22.7%) in high school. A significant portion of the administrators are undergraduate (n = 635, 89.6%) and a small portion are graduate (n = 74, 10.4%).

Data collection tool
The data were collected using an online form. The form included questions about demographic variables and the scale for determining the problems of school administrators. In the scale developed by the researcher, 44 items with frequencies between 1 = never and 5 = always are included in 8 dimensions (Appendix). A draft form was created by writing 72 items according to the results of the literature review, especially the results of previous studies (Çınkır, 2010;Demirtaş, Üstüner & Özer, 2007;Ekinci, 2010;Erol, 1995;Turan, Yıldırım, & Aydoğdu, 2012). Among these items, 22 items need to be reverse coded. The items contain statements regarding the problems that school administrators may encounter. For example, an item has the statement "I have to work on weekends". Therefore, it can be said that the higher the average of the responses given to the items, the more often the managers encountered the related problem.

Collection of Data
The data were collected using an online form. Compared to conventional paper forms, online forms can save cost and time, can be easily applied to large masses, and facilitate data analysis (Fan & Yan, 2010;Selm & Jankowski, 2006). Also, online forms can be regarded as equivalent to paper forms, as they do not affect research results (Huang, 2006).

Analysis of Data
Data were analyzed with R, an open-source statistical programming language (Ihaka & Gentleman, 1996). R has been widely used for the last 20 years (Field, Miles, & Field, 2012). Experts create program packages to make certain analyzes with R (Beaujean, 2014). Exploratory factor analysis with the psych (Revelle, 2018) package included in the R library, confirmatory factor analysis with the lavaan (Rosseel, 2012) package, and mvn (Korkmaz, Göksülük & Zararsız, 2014) package were performed with multivariate normality assumption analysis. When the multivariate normality assumption is examined, it is found to be significant (p <.001) for the Doornik-Hansen (2008), Henze-Zirkler (1990), Mardia (1970Mardia ( , 1974 and Royston (1992) tests. Therefore, the Principal Axis Factoring (PAF) was used for the exploratory factor analysis (Strahan, 1999), and Diagonally Weighted Least Squares (DWLS) calculation was used for the confirmatory factor analysis (Mindrila, 2010).

Results
After collecting the data with the draft form applied to a group of 50 people in a pilot study, 8 items with low item-total correlations (r <.35) were eliminated. Explanatory factor analysis was performed with PAF on the remaining 64 items and the data collected from 709 school administrators. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value calculated for the adequacy of the data amount was found at the level of .86 and the Bartlett test was found to be statistically significant (p <.001). According to the parallel analysis technique, it was predicted that the scale could have 8 dimensions. Since significant (p <.05) correlations were determined among the dimensions, the distribution of the items by the promax oblique rotation technique was used. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients of the sub-dimensions ranged from α = .65 to α = .83. It is accepted that the Cronbach alpha coefficient should be α = .65 and above (Spector, 1992;Vaske, 2008). Revelle beta coefficient, which is the lowest limit of the splitting reliability, was found to be = .76, the upper limit Guttman lambda 4 coefficient was found to be λ4 = .94, and the average coefficient was = .89. The total variance that the scale can explain is 48%. When the eightdimensional structure was tested with the confirmatory factor analysis based on DWLS calculation, good fit index values were determined (χ2 / df = 1.72, p <.001, AGFI = .95, GFI = .96, CFI = .96, NFI = .92, IFI =. .96, RFI = .91 RMSEA = .03, SRMR = .05), and the construct validity was ensured by finding the factor structure compatible with the data (Hooper, Coughlan, & Mullen, 2008). The factor loads of the items varied between .34 and .90 ( Table  2).
The dimension that school administrators have the most problems with is the education system (X=3.78, Sd=0.61). The dimension with the least problem is the dimension of experiencing violence (X=1.57, Sd=0.80). According to the findings, it can be said that school administrators frequently experience problems related to the education system and workload. Sometimes problems may arise regarding personal rights, organizational commitment and school climate. School administrators rarely have problems with respect and school management. It can be said that the administrators have never been subjected to violence.
The correlations between the dimensions of the scale of determining the school administrators' problems were examined. The findings are presented in Table 3. All of the correlations between dimensions are statistically significant and at a positive level. However, it can be said that the correlations are generally low. The correlations between dimensions are not too high or too low, indicating an acceptable factor structure. The workload dimension is mostly related to the education system and personal rights. Similarly, personal rights dimension is mostly related to the education system and school climate, the school management dimension is mostly related to violence and respect, the school climate dimension is mostly related to personal rights and respect, the respect dimension is mostly related to school management and climate, the education system dimension is mostly related to personal rights and workload, organizational commitment is mostly related to the education system and workload, and exposure to violence is mostly related to school management, workload, and respect.

Conclusion
In this study, it was determined that school administrators frequently experienced problems related to the education system. It has also been determined in previous studies that school administrators have problems with the education system (Aslanargun & Bozkurt, 2012;Cerit, Akgün, Yıldız & Soysal, 2014;Demirtaş, Üstüner & Özer, 2007;Ekinci, 2010). Suggestions can be given based on the results of the research for the solution of the problems experienced by school administrators in the education system. Not mixing politics with education, not making frequent changes in the education system, increasing the quality of teachers, eliminating rote learning, arranging the appointment and relocation regulations in line with the views of the administrators, preventing ideological discrimination and favoritism, changing the criteria for selecting administrators, reducing the differences between the opportunities of the schools, ensuring academic success. It can be suggested that administrators be supported to cope with student behaviors and to adapt to immigrant students.
In the study, it was also determined that school administrators frequently had problems related to workload. It is also stated in previous studies that school administrators have a high bureaucratic workload (Çınkır, 2010;Günbayı & Akcan, 2013;Keser & Gedikoğlu, 2008;Ural, 2002). Özdemir and Sezgin (2002) state that school administrators have many obligations regarding leadership. Thanks to their leadership skills, managers can make business planning and distribution of authority easier and faster. Leadership styles change approaches to planning, execution, decision making, distributing responsibility and so on. The authors imply that leadership skills are not sufficient to be successful in the field of school administration and to cope with the workload. Managers should be well-equipped, open to innovation, and have high communication skills. The negativities felt by school administrators with these qualifications can be reduced. The stress level of school administrators due to organizational factors may also increase (Ural, 2002). In schools, many factors such as insufficient cooperation, excessive workload, bureaucratic and financial obstacles, family-studentteacher-management mismatch reduce the ability of administrators to cope with stress (Madenoğlu, 2013). Regarding the workload dimension, it can be suggested to reduce the workload of school administrators, to provide adequate financing to schools, to provide managers with stress management support and to reduce paperwork.
Another result of the research is that school administrators sometimes have problems with their personal rights. It is stated in the literature that educators have problems with their personal rights (Gündüz & Can, 2011). However, in a study, 70% of school administrators found their personal rights sufficient (Akbaşlı & Balıkçı, 2013). Considering the responsibilities, duties and authorities that school administrators take, it can be thought that their income should be higher. However, it can be said that administrators do not earn much compared to teachers, so they are unfairly treated. In order to improve personal rights, it can be suggested to increase the number of institutions representing school administrators, the Ministry and unions to observe the rights of school administrators, the regulation of the legislation to solve the problems, and the fairness of school inspections.
As a result of the research, it was determined that school administrators sometimes have problems with the school climate. It is also stated in the literature that school climate-related problems are experienced in schools 20 (Taşdan, Tösten, Bulut & Karakaya, 2013). It has been determined that school administrators have problems with communication with parents, teacher qualification and rotation, and physical and financial opportunities (Polat & Arslan, 2017). Contrary to the results, in a study, it was determined that school administrators did not have any problems with the school climate (Demirtaş, Üstüner & Özer, 2007). Regarding the school climate dimension, it can be suggested to increase the physical facilities of the schools, the school-family cooperation, the guidance service provided to the students, the importance given by the parents to the education and the students' desire to learn.
According to another result reached within the scope of the research, school administrators sometimes have problems with organizational commitment. It can be said that this situation generally agrees with the results of the studies dealing with the organizational commitment level of school administrators. Since organizational commitment studies in schools are mostly conducted with teachers, there are few studies on the organizational commitment level of administrators (Akar, 2014). It is recommended to take measures to increase the organizational commitment of school administrators.
Fortunately, school administrators rarely have problems with respect, school management and they had never been subjected to violence. Similar results were obtained in a previous study (Çetin & Alpanık, 2012).
In this study, a standardized data collection tool to identify the problems of school administrators for the first time in Turkey was developed. Determining the School Administrators' Problems Scale is a valid and reliable data collection tool consisting of 44 items and 8 dimensions. The scale can determine the problems faced by school administrators regarding workload, personal rights, school administration, school climate, respect, education system, organizational commitment, and violence. Although these problem areas are determined by a comprehensive literature review, the total variance that the scale can explain remains at 48%, indicating that there are more problems to be measured. Of course, the total variance explained may also vary according to the calculation method used. Nevertheless, data collection tools that can identify as many problems as possible should be developed through more comprehensive research in the future. Measuring organizational commitment with two items is another limitation. Future research must find ways to overcome these limitations. Since there is no similar scale, an equivalent form could not be used to test the criterion validity. This scale can be used as an equivalent form in future research. Developments in the education system may cause school administrators to encounter new problems. The increasing importance of issues such as inclusive education and global competence and changes in demographic structure due to immigrants may also reveal new problem areas. Therefore, the developed scale should be updated with new researches in the future. With the Problems of School Administrators Scale, the level of problems experienced can be determined and necessary measures can be taken. If the scale can be applied in different regions at the same time, comparisons between regions can be made and attempts can be made to ensure equal opportunity.
Kivanc Bozkus is an assistant professor working at Artvin Çoruh University in Turkey. He completed a bachelor's degree in science teaching and worked as a science teacher. By receiving a graduate education grant from the national ministry of education, he got a master's degree in educational leadership. He has got a Ph.D. degree in educational administration. His research interests are professional development of teachers, school development, leadership, and organizational behaviour. Contact Address: Çayağzı Mah. Artvin Çoruh Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi 08000 Merkez Artvin Turkey E-mail: kbozkus@gmail.com