Exploring the Accountability Relationships of Turkish School Principals: A Qualitative Study

In developed countries, accountability mechanisms, external control and standardized testing to increase student academic achievement have fundamentally influenced school principals and the understanding of principalship. On the other hand, much is unknown about the Turkish principals’ experiences of their accountability environment. However, this is significant because accountability relations might be even destructive for principals and the school learning environment despite the intended formative purposes. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore the accountability relationships of Turkish K12 school principals. The data of seventeen purposefully-sampled Turkish school principals were collected through audio recordings and in-depth phenomenological interviews. Data analysis yielded five major themes with supporting sub-themes: bureaucratic accountability environment, market accountability environment, professional accountability environment, accountability intensity, and accountability impacts on stakeholders. Knowing the nature of context-dependent accountability environments can help principals adopt new roles and help policymakers improve their ill-natured accountability relations, principal preparation and development programs.