School principal

Job isolation affects the quality of work-life of school principals. Given the vital role of the principals in the success of the schools and, consequently, the success of the community, this issue is of particular importance. Current qualitative research is done to develop a model to prevent job isolation of school principals in Iran based on Strauss and Corbin's grounded theory and systematic approach. The research participants were school principals of three educational levels in Iran. A total of 18 school principals were selected by theoretical purposeful sampling method. In-depth semi-structured interviews continued data collection until theoretical saturation. Content analysis based on the continuous comparison method of Strauss and Corbin was used to analyze the interview texts. The results of data analysis during three stages of open, axial, and selective coding were 13 core categories, 34 subcategories, and 133 concepts analyzed within the framework of the paradigm model and in the form of causal conditions (Occupational causes and Managerial causes), contextual conditions (Extra-school Causes, Inter-school Causes, and Human causes), intervening conditions (Demographic causes and the atmosphere of society), strategies (Existence of spiritual assets in the organization, Creating a supportive umbrella, Managerial style, and Modifying the strategic structure of education), and consequences (Micro consequences and Macro consequences). The Lincoln and Guba (1985) approach was used to validate the data, including creditability, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. According to this study’s findings, the Education System should initiates programs for principals to help them prevent their job isolation.

The principal sometimes makes decisions that cannot solve the problem because the principal does not adequately study the factors that influence and hinder the implementation of decisions before making a decision. The low quality of decisions is because of the lack of data availability or current information related to planning parameters. The unavailability of a decision support system as part of an education management information system that manages the data becomes information for school principals and is an obstacle to the quality of decision-making. The main objective of this research is proposing the decision-making model of school principals. This research is a quantitative study with a questionnaire as a research instrument. The research sample was the head of vocational schools in the Special Region of Yogyakarta and Central Java. The data analysis technique used was the analysis technique used by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) using SmartPLS software. The results showed that the Decision Information System and the Decision Support System must support a practical decision-making quality. Both systems will have an impact on increasing alternative selection ability and analysis of problem-solving ability. Future research may develop an Android-based principal’s decision support system.