An Analysis of Instructional Leadership Studies in Türkiye: A Meta-Synthesis Study

Abstract

Instructional leadership has a remarkable importance in student learning and school development in the international literature. This situation enables researchers to examine different aspects of instructional leadership. This study aims to synthesize qualitative research findings examining the instructional leadership behaviors of school principals in Türkiye. Meta-synthesis method was employed; thus, 21 studies that met the inclusion criteria were analyzed using this method. The studies constituting the study's data source were accessed by scanning the databases of ERIC, EBSCOhost, Google Scholar, YÖKTEZ (Council of Higher Education, National Thesis Center), and ULAKBİM (Turkish Academic Network and Information Center). As a result of the research, three themes were obtained: Instructional leadership behaviors, effects of instructional leadership, and factors hindering instructional leadership. Although the research results indicate positive relationships between instructional leadership and organizational effectiveness and development, the roles of school principals as instructional leaders in the Turkish education system, which has a centralized structure, are reflected in their actual daily practices to a limited extent. To this end, there is a need for more comprehensive empirical studies and evidence-based models of exactly how instructional leadership affects organizational development in the Turkish literature.