Research on Teacher's Level of Trust to the Collegues, The Students and the Parents

Abstract

Schools are the most important organizations of society. The success and efficiency of schools depend mostly on the trust between and among teachers, students and parents. Lack of trust in colleagues, students and parents damages the relations between them and prevents cooperation at schools. In a short period of time, building trust at schools will improve the quality of the relationships between teachers, students and parents. In a long period of time, it may pave the way for improvements which will affect the whole society. Thus, it is important to detect teacher's level of trust towards their colleagues, the students and the parents and measures that need to be taken to increase the level of trust among stakeholders.In this study, some conclusions that are drawn from the investigations of the elementary school teacher's level of trust towards their colleagues, the students and the parents and some factors that affect their beliefs will be presented. This research was carried out within the framework of the general research model. The study population included 2857 teachers employed in 57 public elementary schools in the 2010-2011 academic year in Küçükçekmece-İstanbul. The sample of the study totaled 798 teachers; 494 (58.1%) of them were women and the rest 334 (41.9%) were men from 24 different elementary schools. Data of the research were gathered through the “Organizational Trust Scale” developed by Yılmaz (2006a) based on the Trust Scale (T Scale) of Hoy and Tschannen-Moran was used in this research.The result of the study indicates that teachers “mostly” trust in their colleagues and “sometimes” trust in the students and the parents. In line with the results, elementary school teacher's level of trust in their colleagues, trust in the parents and the students are ranked respectively. Yet, it has also been found out that there is a significant correlation between the level of trust towards the students and parents and professional seniority and the number of teachers at school. Besides, there is also a significant correlation between the level of trust towards the colleagues and seniority.