Learning Organizations as Predictors of Academic Achievement: An Analysis on Secondary Schools

Abstract

The aim of this research was to examine the relationship between academic achievement of secondary school students (graduation and transition to higher education) and perceptions of school administrators and teachers on schools as learning organizations. The research is conducted within relational survey method. The “Level of Realization of the Determination scale for Learning Organization Disciplines’ at Organizations” which was developed by Turkoglu (2002) and “Demographic Information Form” which was developed by the researcher were used for data collection. For the research, 565 school administrators and teachers were chosen according to cluster sampling method along with 1799 students that attend the schools of those which were included in the research. Findings have shown that participants’ learning organization perception levels are at ‘generally’ level. The discipline with highest average is learning as a team. While perception level of the participants doesn’t show a significant difference according to gender, it showed a significant difference according to the variables of work, institution that they work at and seniority. The participants whose professional experience is 21 years and above, those who work at private schools and administrators’ learning organization perception level is higher. The results of the research have shown that there is a positively low level relation between points of schools’ learning organization and students’ graduation and transition to a higher education (TEOG) points. Simple linear regression analysis have shown that schools’ learning organization points predict students’ graduation and transition to a higher education (TEOG) achievement. These results have shown that in order to enhance students’ academic achievement much more emphasis must be put on the fact of learning organizations at schools. These results indicate that in order to increase academic success of students, it is required to increase schools’ capacity as learning organizations.