مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - The Evidence-Based Approach to Problem Solving at Schools

Abstract :

The aim of this study was to analyze school principals’ usage of evidence-based approach to solving organizational problems. This study is a qualitative study that was designed phenomenological design in order to determine the perception and awareness of school principals about problem solving process. The sample of this study consists of 10 principals who were chosen out of other principals who work at public middle schools in Ankara’s central districts according to criterion sampling and maximum variation sampling. Standardized open-ended interview form was used to determine school principals’ usage of the evidence-based approach to solving organizational problems. School principals’ fictional or real-life based opinions and perspectives towards describing the organizational problems, producing data or finding evidence and their method of searching for an appropriate solution for two problem states that were pre- established for each aspect, in total six problems that can be possibly experienced in technical, administrative and institutional aspects were analyzed. Descriptive analysis out of the qualitative analysis techniques was used for the analysis of data. The result of the study reveals the fact that principals generally do not act according to scientific methods during the process of problem identification, partially only a few principals evaluate local-situational evidence, the data that is produced by another entity or organizations and the perspectives of the ones who would be affected by the decision. Additionally, none of the participants referred that they used research evidence in problem solving process. This study’s research findings indicate that the decisions of school principals are mostly based on their personal specialty, past living, experiences or their estimations.