Accountability Policies at Schools: A Study of Path Analysis

Abstract

Turkey is now on its way to reforming compulsory education and having a more effective and efficient education system by creating more accountable schools. This research has been designed in a causative pattern to discover the effects of external academic performance pressures on school accountability policies and school accountability responses based on quantitative data obtained both from teachers and school administrators. First, account-giving behaviors related to teaching activities among school teachers and administrators directed at themselves and created by academic performance pressures coming from school shareholders, the local socio-environment, and upper bureaucracy respectively were discovered. Second, academic performance pressures from school shareholders create more support for schools’ policy on market accountability, whereas bureaucratic performance pressures create resistance to the policy on performance accountability. Third, those who favor obeying the rules for teaching are more inclined to give an account of their deeds to the upper bureaucracy.