Analysis of the Data on School Principals in the TALIS 2018 Country Note Reports in the Context of the PISA 2018 Results

Abstract

A vast amount of research has been conducted to investigate the effects and roles of educational leaders on school outcomes using data from international studies. To get a better understanding of the relationship between educational leaders and school outcomes, evaluating international studies together may offer more comprehensive suggestions for educational policies. The purpose of this paper was to examine the data on school principals in the TALIS 2018 country note reports in the context of the PISA 2018 results in order to have a broad perspective on the characteristics of school principals as educational leaders. A document analysis was performed on data derived from the TALIS 2018 country note reports of eight OECD countries and Türkiye, and the collected data was subjected to descriptive analysis. At the end of the data analysis, it was revealed that countries that had high success in the PISA results generally had positive values in the TALIS results. It was shown that school principals in the countries ranked high in the PISA have generally more work experience as principals and are more satisfied with their salaries. In addition, their participation in training programs or courses on school management and professional development activities is high. The present study also confirmed previous research, indicating that individuals who have high job satisfaction show high success, thereby ranking high in the PISA results in the context of this study. Our findings indicated that school principals should be encouraged to participate in training to support their professional development.