How Elementary School Principals’ Change Tendencies are Related with their Opinion about Curriculum Change

Leadership is important in change process and change management. Turkish educational system is undergoing a constant change. One of those changes was the change of the elementary school curricula, which had been accepted in the 2004-2005 academic year. Therefore, it is important to understand how school principals, as the persons who are in charge of this change, handle this process. In this respect, this study was aimed to determine school principals’ tendencies toward change. Furthermore, it will also be explored whether those tendencies show any significant differences on some variables. Finally, having incorporated school principals’ views on curriculum, school principals’ change tendencies will be interpreted within this change phenomenon. This study was designed with a mixed methodology. In order to understand school principals’ tendencies toward change, a change tendency scale, developed by Akbaba-Altun and Büyüköztürk (2011), was utilized. In addition, school principals were asked to narrate their opinions regarding the changed curricula and its reflections on practice. The quantitative data were analysed through descriptive and interpretive analysis whereas the qualitative data were analysed through content analysis. A total of 179 elementary school principals joined the quantitative part of this study, whereas 154 of them participated in the qualitative one. It was observed that school principals were generally homogenous in their change tendencies. Within this context, this finding was supported by the qualitative data, as well.