The analysis of articles and thesis published on school-based management in Turkey

This research aims to generally analyse theses and articles written on school-based management in Turkey. The research is descriptive and has been conducted by means of document review. The data of the research have been obtained from nine articles, which were published by the database of ULAKBIM National, Social and Human Sciences, and from eight master’s theses in full texts which are recorded in the Thesis Data Centre of Council of Higher Education. The researched articles and theses have been subjected to content analysis in terms of the publication year, type of research, method of research, data collection tools, sample/study groups, sample size, data analysis techniques, type of university where the theses were written, the number of article writers and the number of sources used. It has been concluded that the articles and theses examined were mostly in the type of research-review, that the sample size was generally selected from teachers and administrators.


Introduction
Recent research on the effective school movement has shown that there are findings showing a positive relationship between the quality of school outputs and school-based management (SBM) approach.This has become one of the main factors in the emergence of the SBM approach.SBM models, which have become the focus of education reforms, have spread to a large application area and become increasingly widespread in different parts of the world in different forms, especially in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and parts of the United States of America, Israel, Philippines, Kyrgyz Republic, Nepal, Hong Kong (China), Indonesia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Kenya, Paraguay and Mexico (Barrera-Osorio, Fasih, Patrinson & Sant, 2009;Caldwell, 2005;Murphy & Beck, 1995;Taylor & Bogotch, 2004;World Bank, 2007).SBM includes the processes of the transference of decision making and responsibility from the education centre or provincial units to the school level on the issues including budget, staff, plan and programme (Bandur, 2012;Cheon & Mok, 2007;Gammage, 2008;Caldwell, 2005;Nir, 2002).SBM covers a decentralised redistribution of authority from central and region offices to local schools (Murphy & Beck, 1995).SBM can be viewed conceptually as a formal alteration of governance structures, as a form of decentralisation that identifies the individual school as the primary unit of improvement and relies on the redistribution of decision-making authority as the primary means through which improvement might be stimulated and sustained (Malen, Ogawa & Kranz, 1990).
In the relevant literature, SBM is the decentralisation of authority from the central government to the school level (Caldwell, 2005).The approach is expressed with various concepts such as schoolcentred management, decentralisation, restructuring in education, on-site management, participatory decision making and on-the-job authorisation as well.SBM is based and on the paradigms of expanding the areas of the movements of schools and making the education and management activities effective (Bandur, 2008;Briggs & Wohlstetter, 1999;Cobbold, 2012;Volansky & Friedman, 2003).SBM based on assumptions that such a method would increase student's success through organising (Malen et al., 1990;Murphy & Beck, 1995).In school management, the fact that school stakeholders such as teachers and parents assume duty and responsibility (Cheng, 1996;Fullan & Watson, 1999;Murphy & Beck, 1995;Taylor & Bogotch, 2004) means an important change.In SBM, responsibility for, and decision-making authority over, school operations is transferred to principals, teachers and parents and sometimes to students and other school community members.
The current literature lacks in terms of the study that investigates theses and articles on SBM in Turkey.This research has been done as a response to this gap in the literature.In this sense, the research is original and it is expected that it will guide researchers who will study in this field in the future.In this study, it has been aimed to methodologically investigate articles and theses published on SBM until today in Turkey.It has been found that the examined articles were published between 1996 and 2016.

Method
The research is descriptive and it has been conducted by means of document review.In the descriptive scanning model, the qualifications of science are mentioned like observing, recording, determining the relations between events and reaching generalisations over the invariant principles that are controlled (Yildirim & Simsek, 2016).In qualitative research, the event, individual or the object that are in the scope of the study are identified conditions (Karasar, 2010).Document review contains the analysis of written documents which provide information about the targeted events or cases to be investigated (Yildirim & Simsek, 2006).In this research, the studies published by the Council of Higher Education National Thesis Centre in Turkey and by the ULAKBIM National Database for Social and Human Sciences have been investigated.They have been scanned with keywords of 'school-based management.'Eight master's theses and nine articles in full texts have been investigated.Three master's theses have not been included in the study due to access restriction.The research has been limited to the theses and articles on SBM which were published between 1996 and 2016.Document analysis technique has been used in the examination of the reached theses and articles.Document analysis objectively, systematically and quantitatively covers the analysis of written materials related to the research topic (Yildirim & Simsek, 2016).In order to analyse the thesis and the articles, 'Article-Thesis Review Form' developed by the researcher has been used by taking the model of 'Publication Classification Form' which belongs to Sozbilir, Kutu & Yasar, 2012) and by taking the opinions of two associate professors who are experts in content analysis.In order to increase the reliability of the data obtained from the articles and theses examined, interviews were conducted frequently with the experts by using 'Article-Thesis Review Form'.
In this study, the content analysis technique has been used in the analysis of the data obtained.The examined theses and articles have been subjected to content analysis under 10 basic categories.The main purpose of the content analysis is to reach the concepts and relations concerning the research.The data obtained in the descriptive analysis are examined in a deeper and more detailed way through content analysis.On the other hand, Falkingham and Reeves (1998) describe content analysis as the method used for collective evaluation of studies conducted in the same subject.The main purpose of the descriptive analysis is to present the findings to the reader in an organised and interpreted way, whereas the purpose of the content analysis is to reach the concepts and relations that can explain the collected data (Yildirim & Simsek, 2016).
In the analysis and interpretation process of the obtained data, the examined articles and theses have been classified under the categories such as year of publication, type of research and investigation, research method, data collection tools, sample/study groups, sample size, data analysis techniques, type of university in which theses were studied, article writers and the number of sources used.The frequency (repetition) (f) and percentages (%) of the analysed articles and theses have been calculated according to the categorisations, and interpretations have been made according to the data revealed.During the analysis and interpretation process of the data, a consensus has been reached between the researcher and the experts.
In the research 'Article-Thesis Review Form' developed by the researcher by taking expert opinion has been used as the data collection tool.Article-Thesis Review Form is composed of 10 sections: the publication year of the theses and articles, type of research, method of research, data collection tools, sample/study groups, sample size, data analysis techniques, type of university where studies were carried out, writers and the number of sources used.The collected information based on this form has been transferred to the 'Office Excel' program.Then, percentage and frequency statistics have been provided.

Findings
Findings related to the research on SBM have been obtained from eight master's theses and nine articles in full texts which were published until today.One of these theses examined is a doctorate study and seven of them are master studies.Two of them belong to the foundation/private universities.Six of them belong to public universities.Findings on the evaluation of the articles and theses on the SBM are presented below in tables.The frequency and percentage values regarding the year of the publication of the articles and theses are given in Table 1.All the theses examined within the scope of SBM (f = 8, 100%) and six (66.7%) of the article studies were carried out in the type of research-review.Three (33.3%) of the written articles are theoretical (compilation) type.When the theses and articles examined are evaluated collectively, it is seen that 14 (82.4%) are in the form of research-review and three (17.6%)are theoretical (compilation).It can be said that the studies examined are largely based on the type of research-review.Frequency and percentage values of the articles and theses regarding the research methodology are given in Table 3.Two (33.3%) of the studied articles are qualitative, three (50%) are quantitative and one (16.7%) is both qualitative and quantitative.Six of the theses (42.9 %) are qualitative, six (42.9%) are quantitative and one (14.3%) is written with the mixed methodology.When the total numbers are looked, it is possible to say that the research approach of the written theses is largely qualitative and in the articles, it is more quantitative.Frequency and percentage values of the articles and theses regarding the research type are given in Table 4.It is seen that six theses (75%) on SBM are descriptive and two (25%) are correlational models.Five of the written articles (55.6%) are descriptive, two (22.2%) are correlational models, another is a case study and the other is a study of different type.When the studies are evaluated collectively, it can be said that descriptive type (f = 11, 64.7%) was preferred to a large extent.It draws attention that experimental research method was not preferred in the theses and articles regarding the research topic.Frequency values of the examined articles and theses regarding the data collection tools are given in Table 5.When the total values of the analysis regarding the kind of measuring tools collected for the data of the studies are examined, it is seen that Likert type scales (f = 8, 57.1%) and semi-structured interview forms (f = 5, 35.7%) were used more often than other data collection tools.In the process of data collection, it is observed that in the first place, Likert type scales, in the second place structured interview forms were used.Frequency values of the articles and theses regarding the sample and study groups are given in Table 6.When the data in the table are evaluated collectively, it is seen that the sample types were selected largely from teachers and managers (f = 5 + 4, 64.3%) who were employed in primary schools.It draws attention that in three studies, both teachers and administrators (f = 3, 21.4%) were selected as sample/study groups.In three studies, sample/study groups were not selected as they were theoretical/compilation study types.Frequency and percentage values of the articles and theses regarding the sample size are given in Table 7.When the examined articles and theses are evaluated collectively, it is determined that the sample size of the five theses (38.7%) ranges from 31 to 100 and that the sample size of the four theses (30.8%) ranges from 101 to 300.In both types of study, '1,001 and above' sample size has not been found.Frequency values of the articles and theses regarding the data analysis techniques are given in Table 8.It is seen that in the studies of both theses and articles written on SBM, 'content analysis' (f = 7, 41.2%) and t-test (f = 6, 35.3%) techniques were predominantly used.In both types of studies, it can be said that 'content analysis' and 't-test' analysis techniques were used predominantly.The data concerning the number of sources used in the articles and theses are shown in Table 9.When we look at the research studies that are examined within the scope of the study, it is determined that the number of sources used in the articles ranges from 11 to 30, whereas this number ranges from 71 to 120 in the theses.Information on the number of authors of the articles examined is shown in Table 10.Four (44.4%) of the examined articles consisted of three authors, four (44.4%) consisted of two authors and one (11.1%)consisted of three authors.Based on this information, it is seen that one-and two-authored works were more preferred and that studies done by more than two authors were not preferred much.It can be said that articles written by two authors, mostly together with the consultant were the studies taken from master's theses.

Results, discussions and recommendations
In this research, theses and articles written on SBM in Turkey have been analysed in terms of variables including year of publication, type of research-review, method of research, data collection tools, sample/study groups, sample size, data analysis techniques, type of universities where the theses were studied, the number of authors of the articles and the number of sources used.In this context, a total of eight master's theses and nine academic articles published since 1996 and which are fully accessible have been investigated.
When the findings obtained in the research are evaluated collectively, it is seen that thesis studies on SBM were conducted between 2006 and 2010 and that article studies spread between 2003 and 2016.Two of the thesis studies belong to foundation/private universities and six of them belong to the state universities.One of the eight theses examined is a doctorate study, seven of them are master studies.It is noteworthy that master studies outnumber doctorate studies.This result justifies Arik and Turkmen's (2009) findings that 'the number of master's theses studied in Turkey in a year is about four times the number of doctoral dissertations.'These results can be attributed to the quotas opened and to a large number of students accepted for master studies at universities.
In the articles and theses studied, it has been concluded that mostly research-review studies were carried out.This result is paralleled to Ozan and Kose's (2014) findings that 'the articles examined in the field of education in Turkey are predominantly in the form of research-review.Another result is that in the articles and theses examined, quantitative and qualitative studies are preferred on an equal level for research approaches.In contrast to this result, Erdogan, Kayir, Kaplan, Unal and Akbunar (2015) found that mostly quantitative methods were preferred for the studies carried out in the field of education.It attracts attention that methods based on the mixed approach are not preferred much in the articles and theses studied within the scope of the research.In academic studies, it is important to use quantitative and qualitative (mixed) methods together for more reliable results.
Another result is that the descriptive method was used more frequently than others in theses and articles.This result was consistent with the findings that the method preferred for the studies carried out in the field of education in Turkey is predominantly descriptive (Buyukikiz, 2014;Fazliogullari & Kurul, 2012;Varisoglu, Sahin & Goktas, 2013).In the studies examined, it has been concluded that the most commonly used data collection tools were Likert-type scales and semi-structured interview forms.Also, 't-test' and 'content analysis' techniques were used predominantly in the analysis of the collected data.The reason why the content analysis technique was used more frequently in the examined articles and theses is that it enables the research topic to be analysed in an objective, systematic and quantitative way (Yildirim & Simsek, 2016).
Another noteworthy result is that in both theses and articles, mostly teachers and school administrators were preferred as the sample/study group.This can be attributed to the belief that those who are knowledgeable about SBM are generally teachers and administrators.Including other school stakeholders as sample/study group as well in the research to be done is also important in terms of comparing the results.In the studies examined, it has been seen that the number of sources utilised in the studies of theses was higher than the one used in articles.This result can be attributed to the fact that thesis studies are long-running and more comprehensive.
It attracts attention that the majority of the articles examined within the scope of the research were written by one or two authors.This result is in agreement with the findings that the articles written in the field of education are to a large extent by one or two authors (Ozan & Kose, 2014;Saracaloglu et al., 2013).With reference to the data obtained in the study, the following suggestions have been put forward regarding the studies to be conducted on SBM in Turkey.
1.It is recommended that quantitative and qualitative methods should be used together in order to achieve more reliable results for the studies on SBM. 2. It is recommended that foreign articles and theses in the relevant literature should be examined in a similar way.3. It is recommended that groups of different sample/study (parents, inspectors, education administrators, central-rural administrators, school stakeholders, etc.) should be selected for the studies to be done.4. It is recommended that alternative data collection tools should be used in similar studies.

Table 1 . The frequency and percentage values regarding the year of the publication of the articles and theses
It is seen that the first article study on the issue of SBM was conducted in 1996.Despite the fact that article studies spread between 2003 and 2016, no studies related to the research topic have been found in 2010 and 2013.It has been observed that thesis studies were performed largely between 2006 and 2010.No thesis studies were found in 2011, 2012 and 2014.Frequency and percentage values of the articles and theses regarding the research type are given in Table2.