A systematic review of educational leadership and management research in Turkey

Abstract

Purpose While the current knowledge in the field of educational leadership and management (EDLM) has been primarily based on research produced in English-speaking Western societies, there have been significant efforts by other societies to contribute to the knowledge production, especially during the past decade. The purpose of this paper is to identify the contribution of Turkey to the international EDLM literature by investigating the topical focus, conceptual frameworks and research designs of papers published by EDLM scholars from Turkey. Design/methodology/approach Descriptive content analysis method was employed to examine 315 empirical, review, conceptual and commentary papers published by Turkish scholars in core educational administration and Web of Science journals. The time period of the review left open-ended. However, in practical terms, it begins in the year 1994 when the first article from Turkey was published in any of the selected sources and ends at the end of 2018. Information relevant to the research was extracted from each article and was coded to facilitate quantitative analysis. Using Excel software, descriptive statistics including frequencies and percentages were provided for each research question. Findings Results show that Turkish EDLM scholars mostly rely on survey based quantitative research approach, employing advanced statistical techniques in the analysis of the data. However, mixed method and qualitative studies are relatively less common. Organizational behavior, school leadership and emotions stand out as most frequently used topics, while Turkish scholars are not interested in analyzing the educational outcomes such as student achievement and school improvement. Consistent with the findings related to topical foci, a large number of those who were interested in correlational studies examined the relationship between leadership roles and organizational behaviors. Research limitations/implications The data set only included journal articles and excluded conference proceedings, books and theses/dissertations. Nevertheless, the authors believe this review adds significantly to previous reviews of local EDLM journals conducted by Turkish scholars. The authors concluded that the Turkish scholars should direct their future research to exploring and better understanding the practices of Turkish principals in schools by: diversifying their research topics; incorporating more qualitative and mixed-method designs; and taking into account specific features of the culture and educational system in Turkey. Practical implications Based on the current higher education context, reducing scholars’ teaching load, diversifying research funding opportunities, and modifying access to tenure tracks seem necessary interventions to support EDLM research with strong ties to practice and to the sociocultural context. In addition, policy changes aiming professionalization of administrative positions and establishing some forms of formal training for school principalship are needed. Such changes can help transfer the knowledge produced by the Turkish EDLM researchers to the practice and provide solutions to problems related to school administration. Originality/value This paper will add to recent effort to identify how a developing nation outside Western perspective approaches the field, and contributes to the global knowledge base.

Mapping the field of educational leadership and management in the Arabian Gulf region: A systematic review of Arabic research literature

“…The purpose of this review was to identify trends in EDLM knowledge production in the Arabian Gulf region. Drawing on a database of 272 EDLM studies published in local, Arabic-language journals over a ten-year period (2009-2018), the review found that the literature under investigation reflected many of the features characterising EDLM research in the Arab region at large (Atati and Outum, 2019; karami-Akkari and El-Saheb, 2019), as well as literatures from other developing countries, especially in terms of its topical coverage and selection of research methods (e.g., Bellibaş and Gümüş, 2019;Castillo and Hallinger, 2017;Hallinger and Bryant 2013; This is a peer-reviewed, accepted author manuscript of the following research article: Hammad, W., Samier, E. A., & Mohammed, A. (2020).…”

“…Some employed unbounded search methods which involve the use of search engines such as Googlescholar to identify EDLM sources published in the English language (e.g., Hallinger, 2018a). Others identified potential sources by scanning a delimited set of international EDLM journals available online (e.g., Bellibaş and Gümüş, 2019;Castillo and Hallinger, 2017;Hallinger and Chen 2015;Hallinger and Hammad, 2019;Hammad and Hallinger, 2017). For the purpose of conducting a review of an Arabic-language literature, it was deemed unsuitable to use Googlescholar as a search tool for reasons to do with accessibility.…”

“…Data were analysed quantitatively using graphs and tables to illuminate salient patterns of knowledge production. Trends identified in the database were benchmarked against those found in previous reviews of Arab-related EDLM research published internationally (Hallinger and Hammad, 2019;Hammad and Hallinger, 2017;Oplatka and Arar, 2017), and locally (Atari and Outum, 2019; Karami-Akkari and El-Saheb, 2019), as well as reviews of EDLM research from other developing societies (e.g., Bellibaş and Gümüş, 2019;Castillo and Hallinger, 2017;Hallinger and Chen 2015;Hallinger, 2018a).…”

“…The next step was to classify topics in the Gulf database. For this purpose, a typology was developed drawing on previous EDLM reviews (Atari and Outum, 2019; Bellibaş and Gümüş, 2019;Hallinger and Chen, 2015;Karami-Akkari and El-Saheb, 2019). A number of topics were added and others modified to suit the Gulf literature.…”

“…For example, the subset of studies on school management roles and practices included articles that addressed issues such as managerial creativity, crisis management, time management, and electronic management. These issues did not represent a topical focus for scholars studying EDLM in other developing countries (e.g., Bellibaş and Gümüş, 2019;Castillo and Hallinger, 2017).…”