Computer Education and Instructional Technology Graduate School Principals’ Technological Leadership Experiences: A Phenomenological Research

Abstract

The aim of this research is to bring out school principals' subjective meanings and experiences related to the technological leadership in their schools. This qualitative study employs a phenomenological design. The participants have been determined using the criterion sampling method, a purposeful sampling method. The participants include nine school principals who had graduated from a CEIT (Computer Education and Instructional Technology) department working in public schools in Istanbul during the 2018-2019 academic year. Data have been collected using semi-structured interview questions. The collected data have been analyzed using the method of content analysis. As a result of the content analysis process, four themes have been found: instructional leadership, resource management, teacher efficiency, and technological leadership. The school principals have been revealed to be role models for the teachers and students in terms of their effective use of technology and to not have instructional leadership behaviors. In addition, because of the insufficient budgets for covering technological costs, school principals have difficulty with infrastructure issues and updating hardware and software elements in their schools; to solve this problem, the principals cooperate with parents and nongovernmental organizations. In addition, principals as technology leaders are revealed as having problems related to teachers' reluctance toward new technologies, a lack of sufficient technology knowledge, and motivation. In accordance with these results, some suggestions have been made for practitioners, policy makers, and other researchers.