An Investigation of the Types of Power Used by High School Teachers in Classroom Management According to Teachers’ and Students’ Opinions

Abstract

Introduction: Power relationships, which manifest themselves in all kinds of organizational environments, including educational institutions, manifest themselves as a necessity for teacher leadership in the classroom. It is necessary to use different types of power, which are multi-sourced and influenced by more than one variable, in classroom management to increase the quality of education. Due to these reasons, this study aimed to comparatively examine the types of power used by high school teachers in classroom management according to the opinions of teachers and students. Methods: This research is a descriptive study in the survey model. The study group of the research consists of 187 teachers working in high schools in the central districts of Adana province and 950 students studying in these high schools. The “Personal Information Form (PIF)” and the “Instructor Power Types Scale (IPTS)” were used to collect research data. In addition to descriptive statistics, data were analyzed by the Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests. Results: According to the data obtained in the study, it was determined that teachers used charismatic power and informational power most frequently in classroom management, and they used the power of understanding at least. It was observed that there was no significant difference according to variables in legitimate power and power of understanding among the types of power used by teachers in classroom management. It was revealed that the types of personal power, coercive power, charismatic power, informational power, and expert power differed significantly according to some variables. According to students, teachers use charismatic power and coercive power at most in classroom management and they apply the power of understanding less. Among the power types used by teachers, all other power types, apart from personal power, differ significantly according to various variables of students. There was no significant difference between teachers’ and students’ opinions in terms of using the power of understanding in classroom management. Furthermore, according to students, teachers use other power types (personal power, coercive power, charismatic power, informational power, expert power, and legitimate power) less than they think. Discussion: The frequent use of informational power by teachers may be due to their desire to show these students preparing for the university that every knowledge is very important and necessary. Since the power of understanding is related to the items related to school attendance, this result obtained is thought to be influenced by the school attendance regulations in secondary education. Due to differences in the opinions of students and teachers, it can be said that teachers do not use these different types of power in classroom management as they think or cannot transform their intentions into behavior. Limitations: It is obvious that these results were limited to the reached teachers and students in high schools. Another limitation was that the data within the study collected via PIF and IPTS. Conclusions: In addition to these findings obtained with only quantitative data, it can be examined with classroom observations and student interviews how teachers apply the types of power they use in classroom management in the classroom environment, their effects on the environment, and which type of power is used in which situations.