Study of the Relationship Between School Managers ’ Communicative Skills and Schools ’ Atmosphere

Schools are places where social interactions take place highest. Teachers, students and parents are the individuals of school management that constitute this social life place. A school’s success is closely related with its workers’ fulfilling the duties that are expected from them within an interaction. Every school has its own unique atmosphere. Many factors play an important role for this atmosphere to emerge, however the most important of these is communication skills. Hence for a school’s expected success to be accomplished a strong communication must be created. In that sense a school manager’s communicative skill is an important factor for a school’s success to be accomplished. In this research, school managers’ communicative skills on schools’ atmospheres are studied among the communication processes that exist in schools. Decreasing the problems to minimum that stem from communication, what school mangers can and may do to improve their communicative skills are explained, discussed and ordered in this research. The aim of this research is to determine the effects of school managers’ communication skills on a school’s atmosphere. Relational screening model among quantitative methods were used in this research. Target population of the study consists of teachers and school manager assistans commisioned in official state schools in Istanbul from the districts of Sultanbeyli, Tuzla and Pendik. In this target population, total of 378 teachers constituted the sampling group, determined through random selection method.


Introduction
Since the time humanity has started to exist, they relied on various organizations to accomplish specific ends.To sustain social needs and resolve the problems that emerge in a society, people need to cooperate and conduct activities together with the other members of the society.As the natural result of this, orginizations emerge (Aydın, 1993).Organizations consist of parties that create the society.When society's need has an increment about something and hen works need to be done deftly, individuals inside the organization organize the individuals inside it to create units to accomplish the work/job in a qualified way.Every social unit which is created is an organization (Başaran, 2008, p. 15).
An atmosphere which emerges in an organization is the result of communication between the individuals and groups in that organization.The ration between of an organization's targets being actualized and its individuals expectations being met affects its clitmate.Schools are public places where several social interactions occur.While school managers, teachers and other personnels who work in the school perform their duties, the interaction and communication they form must be strong.Unless a school management has an effective communication process with teachers, other personnels and parents, it may lead to some negativity in school.Furthermore aforementioned siutation may cause the school to fail which is a social living space.In that sense it can be said that interpersonal relations and communications have important roles in schools (Bursalıoğlu, 2010).school managers' competency fields as organizational atmosphere in one of his researches which is about "educational manager's competencies".
Teachers say that when they move from one school to another, from the first moments they feel various characteristics of the new school which they move to.Some of these characteristics are visible to the eye.For instance; decoration of the school, the architectural features of the school, wall writings, its cleanness etc… Moreoever varios characteristics of the school are noticed right away; for example, positive affair of the school personnel towards each other, school administration's authority's presence, teachers' methods and techniques, school personnels' commitment to the school etc… These differences that exist affect the workers, students and parents of that school.This interaction which takes place in a school create the atmosphere of that school (Wei, 2003, p. 2).
School's atmosphere is the sum of characteristics that makes a school different than the others, it has an effect on a school's personnel's behavior and it creates the social and psychological atmosphere.A school manager is the one who is the determinant of a school's organizational atmosphere.School managers may contribute to school in terms of increasing school personnels' motivation and creating a healthy school culture (Çelik, 2005, p. 45).
Many researches that are conducted indicate that a school's atmosphere affects many fields of a school and its personnels.In schools which have positive atmosphere, it is seen that students have less behavioral and emotional problems (Kuperminc, Leadbeater, Emmons ve Blatt, 1997, p. 76).A school's atmosphere is understood through the school's work conditions and these conditions' effects on its workers.A school atmosphere which occurs in a school affects the motivations of its workers, their senses of belonging, morales and work performances.Thus first of all, school managers must create a school atmosphere which must affect a school's personnels in a positive way (Şişman, 2004, p. 101).Hoy's (2003) School Atmosphere: 1) School's physical characteristics 2) School personnels' previous cultural experiences and gender differences 3) Quality of human affairs that take place in a school 4) Common values and beliefs which are created by school personnel.
To create a positive atmosphere in a school, what are expected of school managers are as follows (Bursalıoğlu, 1982): 1) Being able to maintain balance between a school's goals and its workers' expectations.
2) Being able to apply the punishment and reward systems in a way that increases efficiency and motivation.
3) School manager must use his/her effectiveness before he/she uses their authority.4) To sustain the possibilities of security and protection of the school in return of school workers' commitment to the school.5) To give priority of applying the rules which are taken together with the workers of the school.
To accomplish the goals and aims of a shool, it is a fundamental condition of a organizational positive atmosphere to occur (Balcı,1993, p. 31).The most important factor which affects a school's success is the effectiveness of the processes of communication which take places in that school.A school manager's being able to accomplish the goals and aims of a school, his/her being able to state those aims and goals and being able to convey these aims and goals to the personnels of the school are possible through the skill of communication.The communicative competencies which are among a school manager's must-have fundamental competencies have important impact on other personnels' attitudes and behaviors which are necessary for them to fulfill their duties (Çelik, 2007, p. 3). 3 of the fundamental features among the features which a school manager must have are: knowledge of management, fundamental knowledge of the field which he/she works in and skill and knowledge of communication.Among these 3 fundamental features, knowledge of management and level of necessity of fundamental knowledge for the field may vary depending on the position of the manager.On the other hand, the view that communicative skills being the same level for every managers in different positions and all knowledge and skills of management must be nearly at 50% level is an accepted approach (Açıkalın, 1995, p. 39).
The features that an effective school manager must have may be listed as follows: being able to use the mother tongue effectively and correctly, having an effective persuasion, being effective at interpersonal communications, having a skillful listening, having a strong written and oral communication skills (Şahin, 2000).In a research which is conducted to determine the competencies that are needed in school managers who work at primary schools, it was determined that communication must be a fundamental skills of management (Şahin, 2000).
School principals spend most of their time communicating with school staff (Başaran, 1993, p. 70).One of the main characteristics of a successful school principal is to have effective communication skills (Deas, 1994, p. 44;Geddes, 1995, p. 1).An effective school principal must be in constant contact with the teachers.An effective school principal must have strong, written-verbal communication and persuasion skills (Şişman, 2012, pp. 144-146).In order for school principals to initiate and maintain an effective communication process, some communication elements, communication principles and strategies; they should have skills in eliminating communication barriers and organizing communication processes (Şimşek, 1997, p. 97;Bursalıoğlu, 1999, p. 42).
It is important to have communication channels open in defining and solving many problems in schools (Özden, 2013, p. 88).
In school, which is the basic element of education system, the very basic duty of a school manager is to accomplish the aims and goals that are set in a school and respond the expectations of the personnel of the school.For a school manager to be able to accomplish the goals and aims of a school, he/she must utilize monatery and human resources of school efficiently.In that sense for a school manager to reach these goals that are set, besides knowing the concepts and processes of the educational management, he/she must is expected to have effective communication skills and the ability to create a positive atmosphere in school.Thus, in this research an answer to the question of "whether there is correlation between a school manager's communicative skills and a school's atmosphere" is sought.

Research Design
In this research it is aimed to assess communication skills's effect on a school's atmosphere.Relational screening model was used of quantitative methods.Relational screening, which is a version of the survey model, is a model that aims to determine the presence of variation and/or its level among numerous variables.Relational screening model has two types, one being correlational and the other being comparative: While in methods which are corellational types, whether variables change together in relation with each other and how do the change occur are studied, in the comparative styled models, whether there is difference between groups in relation to dependant variable are studied by creating groups according to independent variable (Karasar, 1995, pp. 81-82).

Target Population and Sample
Target population of the study consists of teachers and school manager assistans commisioned in official state schools in Istanbul from the districts of Sultanbeyli, Tuzla and Pendik.In this target population, total of 378 teachers constituted the sampling group, determined through random selection method.
The fundamental features of random sampling methods are their robustness in terms their samples' representing the target population and units, which are taken as basis in sampling, having equal probabilities of getting chosen for the sample.With these methods, it is aimed to form samples which have strong representations that can make valid generalizations for the target population (Büyüköztürk vd, 2009).

Data Collection Tool and Application
For the collection of the data from the teachers and school managers from the target population, "Personal Information Request form", "Scale for Communicative Competency" (Wiemann, 1977), "Scale for School Atmosphere" (Canlı, 2016) were used.
The data which were acquired from scales were coded by means of computer and resolved through the packet program SPSS 22.For the first part of the scale frequency and percentage distribution was done.To determine the managers' perceptions arithmetic mean, standard deviation were done.For determining the differences between attitudes, the paired comparison was normal, thus "t" test was used one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare groups with more than two variables.In case the differance was found significant, Scheffe (Multiple Comparison) and Mann Whitney U test was applied.Whether there were significant differences between views was tested at a significance level of a<0.05.

Personal Information Request Form
The questionnaire which is formed to determine the demographic information of the teachers and school managers.In the form quesions, variables such as state of managing (school manager assistant)", gender, seniority, graduation, school manager's age exist.

Scale of School Atmosphere
"School Climate Scale" developed by Canlı (2016).The School Atmosphere Scale developed by Live consists of 23 items and 5 sub-dimensions.
As a result of the analyzes conducted to determine the internal consistency of the items in the scale, Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient is for democratic and school dedication.908 and for the aspects of leadership and interaction 90.897, for the aspects of success factors 89.753, "for the aspects of sincerity".852 and for the aspects of the conflict 85.730.Based on the findings obtained in this context, it can be said that the scale is valid and reliable.

Collection of the Data
In the academic year 2016-2017, after the sample was determined and the necessary permissions for the research were taken through legal means, the schools were contacted with the teachers and assistant managers and the necessary information was given to the schools.The scales were multiplied and applied by the number of teachers and deputy directors.Analysis was carried out on 378 people.

Recruitment
The universe of the research consists of teachers and deputy principals who work in official schools in Sultanbeyli, Tuzla and Pendik districts of Istanbul.A total of 378 teachers were selected from this population by random sampling.

Statistics and Data Analysis
The level of communication qualifications perceived by teachers in school managers is given in Table 2.  ,11, ss=15,230) were observed.Based on the arithmetic averages, the level of communication proficiencies that teachers perceive in school principals, most of the time in the dimension of general communication is as follows: general communicative competency as "most of the time", Competency of Emphaty as "most of the time", Affiliation and support as "most of the time", Behavioral Flexibility Competence as "most of the time", Social Comfort Competence as "sometimes".
Evaluation of General Communication Levels of Teachers in School Principals by Various Demographic Variables: The levels of General Communication that teachers perceive in school managers; differentiation analysis related to age, gender, educational status, seniority and age of school principal are given below.As shown in Table 3, the teachers were applied the Mann Whitney U Test to determine the difference between the levels of general communication that they perceived in school managers according to their duties.As shown in Table 4, the independent group t-test was used to determine the difference between the general communication levels perceived by the school principals according to their gender and there was no significant difference in the total scale and other sub-dimensions.General Communication As seen in Table 3, independent group t Test was performed to determine the difference between the general communication levels perceived by school managers according to their genders and no significant difference was found between the total scale and other sub-dimensions while the Social Comfort Competence Dimension was found to be significant.In the dimension of Social Comfort Competence, it was observed that men evaluated school principals more positively than women.As seen in Table 5, according to the education of teachers, Kruskal Wallis h Test was used to determine the difference between the general communication levels perceived in school managers and no significant difference was found with the total scale in any sub-dimension.As shown in Table 7, according to the seniority of teachers' perception of managers' level of communication competency, difference between the groups of general communication Scheffe test was done and the test result, the difference in the total scale of 1-5 years seniority and those who have a seniority of 6-10 years those with less than 16 years of age and those with seniority have been found to be more positive for school managers.The same results were observed in all sub-dimensions.As shown in Table 8, the ANOVA test was used to determine the difference between the level of general communication perceived in the school managers according to teachers' seniority and there was no significant difference in Social Comfort Competence Dimension.As shown in Table 9, the Scheffe test was used to determine the difference between the groups of general communication levels of the school managers depending on the ages of the school managers.It is observed that the individuals who have less have evaluated the school principals more positively.The same results were observed in all sub-dimensions.
School Atmosphere Levels According to Teachers' Perceptions.
According to teachers' perceptions, school climate scale levels are given in Table 10.As shown in Table 11, Mann Whitney U Test was used to determine the differences between school atmosphere's perceptions of teachers according to their duties.
In the dimension of intimacy, the deputy principals evaluated the school atmosphere more positively than the teachers.As shown in Table 12, T test was performed to determine the differences between school atmoshpere perceptions of teachers according to their gender and no significant difference was found between the total scale and other sub-dimensions.As shown in Table 13, the Kruskal Wallis H Test was used to determine the differences between school atmosphere perceptions of teachers according to their education and no significant difference was found between the total scale and other sub-dimensions.As shown in Table 14 , ANOVA Test was used to determine the differences between school climate perceptions of teachers according to their seniority and no significant difference was found in the total scale other sub-dimensions.As shown in Table 15, an ANOVA test was used to determine the differences between school administrators' perceptions of school climate according to their age.In the result of the analysis which was conducted to determine the correlation between Communicative Competency and School Atmosphere, except in the aspect of conflict, in all of the subdimensions positive significant correlations were seen.It can be said that this result is coherent as the aspect of conflict consists of negative articles.When these results are taken into consideration it can be said that according to teachers' perceptions as school managers' communicative competencies increase so does the perception about school's atmosphere.

Conclusion and Discussions
The findings, which are acquired as a result of this research, were evaluated to show and explain the correlational analysis between competency of communication and school atmosphere by asssessing the teachers perceptions of school managers' levels of general communications.These perceptions about the levels were then assessed in terms of various demographic variables and school teachers' perceptions of school atmosphere's various demographic variables.
In assessment of teachers' perception of school managers' general communication levels in comparison with demographic variables: There was no significant differences found in teachers' perception of school managers' levels of general communication in the general scale and subdimension, in terms of the teachers' educations and their duties.
While there were significant differences in teachers' perceptions of school managers' Socialrelaxation competence among the levels of general communication in comparison with those teachers' genders, there were no significant differences found in the general scale and other subdimensions (Aspect of General Communication Competency, Aspect Emphaty Competency, Aspect of Affiliation/Support Competency, Aspect of Behavioral flexibility, Aspect of Socialrelaxation Competency, General Competency Aspect).
In terms of Socialrelaxation competency, it was seen that men are inclined to assess school managers more positively when compared to women.In a similar study, according to Gökkaya (2009): In terms of teachers' perceiving school manager's communicative skills, teachers' genders contributed to significant differentiations in emotions of this perception (t=2,08 vep=0,038).According to this, female teachers evaluate the emotional aspect of school teachers' communicative skills as more negative than male teachers do.According to Ayık (2016), it is seen that teachers perceived school managers' communicative skills the highest in "Socialrelaxation" aspect, followed respectively by "understanding-emphaty" and "support" aspects.On the other hand total sum of all the subdimensions of communicative skills was calculated as X=3.94.In the light of these findings it is appropriate to say that school managers' communicative skills are at good levels in the range of "most of the time".Since in our country the number of male school managers is higher than female school managers; men stated that school managers have positive socialrelaxation levels when they communicate with school managers.
While in terms of considering teachers' seniority, among the levels of general communication skills, in teachers' perception of school managers' socialrelaxation aspect there is no significant differences found, in all other subdimensions of the total scale, there were significant differences found.(Aspect of General Communication Skill, Aspet of Emphaty Competenc, Aspect of Affiliation/Support Competency, Aspect of behavioral flexibility Competency).It was seen that aforementioned difference is in seniorities of groups with 1-5 years, an in between seniorities of groups with 6-10 and 16 above while it was seen that groups having little seniorities evaluated school managers as more positive.In all subdimensions the result is seen to be present.In a similar study by Tunç (2015) it was seen that between school managers' communicative competencies and teachers' branch and their occupational seniority there is a significant difference.In the variable of occupational seniortiy, seniorities of 30 years and above cause a significant difference by having the smallest average.
In another study which was conducted by Casiadi (2017), it was seen that teachers' views vary in relation with school managers' communication styles that they adopt, according to teachers' period of service.According to the result, it is seen that differences between teachers are seen more with the teachers that have 1-5 years of service.Teachers having little seniority may have less opportunity of comparing as they don't get to work with different school managers.Teachers having little seniorities evaluate as more positive since they lack experience.
In terms of teachers' perceptions of school managers' general communication skills in comparison with these school managers' ages, it was found that in the total scale and all other subdimensions there is a significant difference.(Aspect of General Communicative Competency, Aspect of Competence of Emphaty, Aspect of affiliation/support Competency, Aspect of Behavioral Flexibility Competency, Aspect of Socialrelaxation Competency).According to school managers' ages, there was a significant difference found in teachers' perception of school managers' levels of general communication, in total scale and all other subdimensions.It was seen that in the aforementioned difference, there is a significant difference in the total scale between the group of 50 and above years and other groups.Moreoever it was also seen that individuals who are young evaluated school managers as more positive.
According to Şimşek (2003), teachers with seniority 6-10 years and 11-15 years and teachers with 3-4 years and 5-6 years in their schools have likewise views on the relationship between school culture and communication skills of school principals.exhibit a downward trend.It is thought that the main reason for this is that teachers do not feel the need to give importance to educational and managerial variables as they were in previous periods because they have accepted them to school members.Therefore, it is seen that the above comments on the task and seniority support each other.Teachers with seniority between 16-20 years and above and the teachers whose terms of service are 7-8 years and above have similar tendencies towards the relationship between school culture and communication skills of school principals.
Young teachers may have high expectations of communication skills from school principals.Teachers who have just graduated from the Faculty may not have much knowledge and skills about communication processes at school.Teachers with a high level may have the opportunity to compare the communication skills of school principals because they work in different schools.
According to the tasks of teachers, there was a significant difference in the dimension of sincerity between school perceptions and no significant difference was found between the total scale and other sub-dimensions.
(Democratization and Adoption Size, Leadership and Interaction Dimension, Factors of Success, Conflict Size).In the dimension of intimacy, the deputy principals evaluated the school climate more positively than the teachers.In another study, according to Sönmez (2016), it is important to show that the gender status of teachers differentiates their perceptions about the intimacy dimension of school climate.In this respect, female teachers perceive the school climate as more sincere than male teachers.
According to the gender, education and seniority of the teachers, there was no significant difference between the school climate perceptions and other sub-dimensions.(Democratization and Adoption Size, Leadership and Interaction Dimension, Success Factors Dimension, Sincerity Size, Conflict Size).Unlike this result, Saygılı (2010) found that school climate scale scores showed a significant difference in favor of male teachers according to gender variable.It was found that there was a significant difference in favor of female teachers according to gender variable of Sincerity subscale scores of School Climate Scale.It was determined that there was a significant difference according to the education climate of school climate scale scores and the difference between the graduate education group and the other education group group in favor of the graduate education group.It was found that the School Climate Scale disagreement subscale scores showed a significant difference according to the occupational year variable, and this difference was found to be in favor of employees for less than 5 years and less than 5 years among employees working for 16 years or more.
While there was a significant difference between the school climate perceptions of teachers and school climate perceptions, there was no significant difference between the total scale and other sub-dimensions.There is a significant difference between the 40-49 age group in the leadership and interaction sub-dimension group with the age group of 50 years and over, they have seen their managers more confrontational.
Similar to these findings, Saygılı (2010) found that the 51-60 age group and the 51-60 age group had higher scores among the 51-60 age group.It was determined that there was a significant difference according to the age variable of the school climate scale sincerity subscale scores, and the difference was in favor of 41-50 age group between the age group of 30 and six and 41-50 age group.

Correlation Analysis Between Communication Competence and School Climate
As a result of the correlation analysis conducted to determine the correlation between communication competence and school climate, it was seen that there was a significant positive correlation in all sub-dimensions except conflict dimension.It can be said that this result is consistent because the conflict size is composed of negative articles.When these results are taken into consideration, it can be said that the perception of school climate has increased as the communication adequacy of school principals increased.

Recommendations
1) Detecting how much of the problems which ocur in schools stem from communicational problems and developement of appropriate strategies may help contribute in creating a healthy communicational environment in educational organizations.
2) At the levels of school managers' communicative skills, a cooperation must be established with the universities and they must be informed as communication is a two-way process.
3) Based on school managers' having communicative skills' being an important factor in schools' having positive atmosphere, in service trainings and seminars for improving school managers' communicative skills must be organized.
4) In terms of school atmosphere, it was found that in the aspect of sincerity there is significant difference of perception of school manager's assistants compared to teachers.In that sense it may be suggested that teachers and school managers organize social activities where they can spend time together to increase the sincerity (dining, family visits, football, volleyball or sport activities etc…) 5) To create a positive school atmosphere school managers must communicate more with teachers who has much more seniorities.
6) School managers can create a positive school atmosphere by observing teachers' attitudes towards school's climate and their occupations.
7) School managers must gather periodically to brainstorm about manage executive issues, they must be able to improve communicative skills and must exchange ideas about creating a positive school atmosphere.
8) School managers and teachers must put effort to make the environment they are in a positive one and must take necessary precautions.For this condition to be evaluated they must periodically conduct meetings to make self-evaluation.

Table 3 .
General communication levels of teachers perceived by school principals according to their duties Mann Whitney u test results

Table 4 .
The general communication levels of teachers perceived by school managers according to their gender t test results

Table 5 .
General communication levels of school principals according to their education Kruskal Wallis h test results

Table 6 .
General communication levels of school principals according to seniority of teachers' Anova test resultsAs shown in Table6, the ANOVA test was used to determine the difference between the level of general communication perceived of the school managers according to teacher' seniority and there was no significant difference in Aspect of Social Comfort Competence.Aspect of Empathy Competence, Aspect of Affiliation and Supporting Competence, Aspect of Behavioral Flexibility Competence, Aspect of Social Comfort Competence, General Communication Scale.Scheffe's test results are given in Table7.

Table 7 .
Scheffe test results

Table 8 .
Teachers' level of perception about general communication levels of school managers' Anova test results

Table 9 .
Scheffe test results
As shown in Table10, it was found that the scores of the school's atmosphere scale according to the perceptions of the teachers of the sample group were Being Democratic and Dedication to school aspect scores (⎯x=25.47,ss=3

Table 11 .
Mann Whitney u test results of school climate perceptions according to teachers' position

Table 12 .
T test results of teachers' perceptions of school in terms of their genders

Table 13 .
Kruskal Wallis H Test results of school atmosphere perceptions of teachers according to their education

Table 14 .
Anova test results of school atmosphere perceptions by teachers' seniorities

Table 15 .
Anova test results of school climate perceptions by teachers' age

Table 16 .
Scheffe test results for determining the significant difference between school agents' age and teacher age groups

Table 16
to determine the differences between school principals' school climate perceptions of teachers according to their age, Leadership and Interaction Size and Conflict Dimension to identify groups that have a significant difference in the Scheffe test was conducted and the results of the leadership and interaction in the sub-dimension 40-It was observed that the school principals of the age group of 40-49 years who had a significant difference between the 49 age group and the age group of 50 and above evaluated the school principals more positively, and the group which is 50 years of age and above evaluated more positively in the conflict dimension by the 40-49 year olds.Correlation Analysis Between Communication Competence and School ClimateCorrelation Analysis between Communication Proficiency Scale and School Climate Results are given in Table17.