Teachers’ and administrators’ perceptions of knowledge management competence of high school administrators

This study aims to determine the teachers’ and administrators’ perceptions of knowledge management competence in high school administration. The study was conducted using the screening model and the study group consisted of 162 teachers and 35 administrators working at eight high schools in Turkey. Administrators’ knowledge management competence was investigated in terms of capturing, sharing, using and storing knowledge. A 5-point Likert scale was used in the study. In order to test the reliability of the scale, the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient was calculated. To analyze the data, Mann Whitney U test, t test, Kruskall Wallis H Test and One-Way analysis of variance were used. According to teachers’ perceptions, high school administrators were “moderately” competent in the sub-scales of capturing, sharing, using and storing knowledge and knowledge management in general. On the other hand, high school administrators perceived themselves as ‘highly’ competent in the sub-scales of capturing, sharing, using and storing knowledge and knowledge management in general. A statistically significant difference was found between teachers’ perceptions and those of administrators’. However, no statistically significant difference was found in teachers’ perceptions according to variables such as gender, seniority and branch.


INTRODUCTION
In order to understand knowledge management, the term of knowledge should be addressed conceptually.In its broadest sense, knowledge refers to the ability to transform information and data into an effective activity.It is possible to come up with different definitions and conceptualizations of knowledge.In the current literature, knowledge can be regarded as anything that is known; tangible or intangible facts that are learned as a result of the act of knowing; it is an interpreted form of data and the establishment of useful relationships between pieces of information.
Knowledge is based on data and information.It is revealed through intellectualization and interpretation of information (Özer, 2011).In this sense, knowledge is a need for people to shape, classify and interpret the world around them.It is also a basic need for humankind.As E-mail:memisoglus@hotmail.com.
Authors agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License the knowledge level of individuals in a society increases, the rate of self-control and autonomy in that society increases (Celep and Çetin, 2003).
The importance of knowledge has gradually increased in recent years.In the past, the ones who had physical power or land and business were considered strong and socially dominant.With respect to individuals, business or government, the exercise of power has, to some extent, shifted towards those having better knowledge and those who are able to manage it best.Individuals, businesses and nations using their knowledge strategically are able to go one step ahead of their competitors and opponents (Koza, 2010).The increase in globalization and the rapid spread of knowledge have decreased political, economic and geographical obstacles replacing with interconnected people, institutions and different societies via advanced computer networks (Zaim, 2005).
In this context, the importance of knowledge and knowledge management has gradually started to increase.Knowledge and knowledgeable individuals have become the essential agents forming the basic resources of the economies in knowledge societies (Öğüt, 2012).Additionally, the transition from industrial society to information society in the developed countries has caused the economic wealth to be measured not only in terms of capital inputs, but also in terms of knowledge, improved skills in developing human resources and investments in this area (Hesapçıoğlu, 2010).

Information society
The term 'information society' began to be used more or less concurrently with the term 'post-modern' or 'postmodernism', and together they reflect a change in critical thinking about society in industrialized Western nations following the Second World War.It was addressed in the mid 1950s, frequently used during 1970s and it became more widespread especially during 1980s (Özden, 1999).
Humanity has gone through a variety of social and economic phases each having specific conditions throughout the history.These phases are primitive, agricultural, industrial and information societies.The advancement of technology and different applications of knowledge in every field of life have paved the way for the apparent transition from the industrial to the information society.In industrial society, individuals used to supply their needs generally by producing and consuming material products.In addition to supplying their material needs, members of information society, on the other hand, focus on generating and using information itself (Koza, 2010).
An information society is the one in which information is the primary resource for creating real capital and wealth.
Computerization is the most common characteristics of the information society.However, there are also other goods and services that are set into motion in the information sector through this process (Özden, 1999).The basic feature of information society is that there is an information-based and technology-patent based structure of production and the technological and intellectual information in question can be used in every field of the economy (Koza, 2010).Thus, each member of the society is obliged to get used to living with information technology.Nevertheless, data itself is not knowledge.Knowledge is the form in which data can be put to practice in a convenient and relevant way.For example, in commercial terms, unless an organization decides what kind of knowledge is needed for conducting its business, it will get overwhelmed by raw data.Thus, the key is knowledge.Rather than force, materials and energy, knowledge is the most prominent factor in the world today (Drucker, 1995).
The dynamics effective in the development of an information society are directed by computer technology.One of the key factors in this development is the 'intellectual sector'.The political system of an information society is generally participatory democracy.This allows the information society to be one in which a high degree of mass knowledge is produced.In this sense, the basic values generated by and for those living in an information society originate from the satisfaction of using this knowledge to achieve goals (Zaim, 2005).

Knowledge management
Knowledge management is the act of managing all processes regarding the creation, distribution and efficient use of knowledge in accordance with the objectives of an organization (Zaim, 2005).Knowledge management can be defined simply as the new and radical methods used for creating, storing, sharing and developing knowledge (Barutçugil, 2002).
Today, knowledge has become one of the leading organizational inputs.All the organizational strategies focus on knowledge-based products and services.Depending on how this function works, new organizational procedures and values are formed for developing, using, sharing and spreading the knowledge.Knowledge-based activities are gradually becoming more critical in organizational processes (Tunç, 2010).
The general purpose of knowledge management is to make knowledge acquired useful for more than one individual, organization and society.Knowledge is an element which binds organizations and society together (Aktan and Vural, 2004).The primary purpose of knowledge management is to keep an organization informed about scientific and technological innovations and conceptual developments that occur around and within the organization over time and allow them to be used by the organization.Being among the main organizations that generate and disseminate knowledge, educational organizations should be able to be well informed about innovations and changes over time (Celep and Çetin, 2003).Individuals, institutions and societies will be successful as long as they acquire new information and bring this information to bear within the cultures of their institutions.An information society requires knowledgeable people because they tend to believe in the necessity, importance and priority of knowledge, act on behalf of knowledge and feel a constant concern for development (Fındıkçı, 2003).
Capturing, sharing, using and storing knowledge are among the components of knowledge management and they form a cycle.Within this cycle, the performance of administrators signifies their competence (Çınar, 2002).Now let's explain these components respectively: Capturing knowledge: Capturing knowledge should not be confused with capturing information.Capturing knowledge is the result of a process that comprises the generation and development of intuitions, skills and relations (Tıwana, 2003).Knowledge is captured through gathering the formal and informal information that develop outside of an organization and concern the organization, as well as the explicit and implicit information within the organization and by generating new knowledge and thoughts by analyzing and synthesizing these with already existing information (Çınar, 2002).Capturing knowledge does not merely mean mechanically adding to preexisting information.The information needs to be captured, arranged and institutionalized (Yazıcıoğlu et al., 2014).
Sharing knowledge: Sharing knowledge requires time and effort.One of the objectives of sharing knowledge is to share and update knowledge and gain acceptance of it instantly (Back andMoreau, 2001 cited in Yeniçeri andİnce, 2005).Sharing knowledge is determined not only by the technological infrastructure of organizations, but also human factors like the organizational structure and the decisions made by the administration (Gökçen, 2007).
Using knowledge: When used, knowledge adds value to an organization and thus the ultimate goal of knowledge management -the better functioning of an organization -is achieved.The process of using and evaluating knowledge is important in terms of measuring the outcomes of knowledge management (Zaim, 2005).Even though all the processes such as creating, developing, classifying, storing and sharing the knowledge are important, knowledge will be useful only if it is properly and effectively used and this use is evaluated (Özer, 2011).

Storing knowledge:
Storing knowledge is a process preventing the loss of the acquired knowledge.Individuals and organizations maintain information in their memory Memisoglu 127 systems at various levels (Özsarıkamış, 2009).
Organizations should store what they learnt in order to retrieve the knowledge they created so that it contributes to further knowledge creation.Knowledge is generally stored in files on computers or archives (Çınar, 2002).In the light of the explanations that have been given so far concerning knowledge management, the objective of this study can be expressed as follows:

Study objective
The objective of this study is to reveal the perceptions of high school administrators' and teachers' perceptions about knowledge management.In this context, the study aims to answer the following questions: 1. What are the teachers' and administrators' perceptions about the knowledge management competence of high school administrators?2. Is there a significant difference between the high school teachers' and administrators' perceptions?3. Is there a significant difference between the high school teachers' perceptions according to gender, seniority, and branch/ faculty variables?

METHODOLOGY
This descriptive study was conducted using screening model.The study sample consisted of 162 high school teachers and 35 administrators at 8 high schools in Bolu Province, Turkey.To collect the data in the scope of the study "Knowledge Management Scale", which was developed by Çınar (2002), was implemented.The scale had 53 items and it measures knowledge management competence in four sub-dimensions.The first subscale is 'capturing knowledge' (10 items), the second one is 'sharing knowledge' (20 items), the third one is using knowledge (8 items) and the fourth one is storing knowledge (15 items).To test the reliability of the scale Cronbach's Alpha Coefficients were calculated.Table 1 presents the results of this analysis.As shown in Table 1, the results of the reliability analysis show that the value of Cronbach's Alpha in 'capturing knowledge' subscale is 0.863; in 'sharing knowledge' it is 0.929; in 'using knowledge' it is 0.789; in storing knowledge it is 0.931 and it is 0.965 for the overall of the scale.These results indicate that the subscales and the overall of the scale is reliable.

Data analysis
The data was analyzed using "statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) for Windows".It is important to determine if the data shows a normal or non-normal distribution to choose between parametric or nonparametric tests.Parametric tests are used in case of a normal distribution and non-parametric tests are used in case of a non-normal distribution.Table 2 presents the normality test of the overall scale and subscales.
As shown in Table 2, the subscales of 'capturing knowledge' (p=.000, p<.05) and 'using knowledge' (p=.009, p<.05) doesn't have a normal distribution.So, nonparametric tests were used to compare the variables in these subscales.
On the other hand, the subscales of 'sharing knowledge' (p=.089, p>.05), 'storing knowledge' (p=.074, p>.05) and the overall scale In analysis of the data, arithmetic means and standard deviation values were calculated for each subscale.In analysis, parametric tests were used in case of a normal distribution and nonparametric tests in case of a non-normal distribution.

FINDINGS
In this section, demographic information about the participants and findings on the study questions will be presented respectively.As Table 4 shows, 82.23% (n=162) of the participants were teachers and 17.77% (n=35) of them were administrators.As Table 5 shows, 43.15% (n=85) of the participants were female and 56.85% (n=112) of them were male.As Table 6 shows, 36.04% (n=71) of the participants had a work experience of 16 years and above; 31.47%(n=62) of them had a work experience of 11 to15 years; 22.84% (n=45) of them

Findings on the study questions
In Table 8, participants' perceptions of knowledge management competence of administrators are presented.
As Table 8 shows teachers perceive administrators as 'moderately competent' with a mean of X =3.09 considering the overall of the scale and 'maximally competent' with a mean of X =3.13 in the 'sharing knowledge' The mean is X =3.08 in the storing knowledge subscale; X =3.06 in the using knowledge subscale and X =3.03 in the capturing knowledge subscale.On the other hand, administrators' self perception of knowledge management competence differs from those of teachers.In the 'sharing knowledge' subscale they had the highest mean ( X =3.71) and the lowest mean ( X =3.45) in the using knowledge subscale.As it can be seen from the table, administrators perceive themselves as being 'maximally competent' in all the subscales and overall of the scale.To determine whether there was a significant difference between teachers' and administrators' perceptions, Mann Whitney U test was carried out.Table 9 shows the results of this analysis.
As Table 9 shows, there is a significant difference between teachers' and administrators' self perceptions of knowledge management competence in the subscales of capturing and using knowledge according to Mann Whitney U test results (p=.000, p<.05).The administrators perceive themselves as being competent in capturing and using knowledge more than teachers perceive them.
Memisoglu 129 Table 10 shows t test results carried out to determine whether there is a significant difference between teachers' and administrators' perceptions of knowledge management competence of administrators in the overall scale and subscales of sharing knowledge and storing knowledge.As Table 10 shows, there is a statistically significant difference between teachers' perceptions of administrators' knowledge management competence and administrators' self perceptions of knowledge management competence in general and in the subscales of sharing and storing knowledge (p=.000, p<.05).The administrators perceive themselves as being competent in sharing, storing knowledge and generally in knowledge management more than teachers perceive them.
Table 11 shows Mann Whitney U results carried out to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference between teachers' perceptions of administrators' competence in the subscales of capturing and using knowledge and administrators' self perceptions according to gender.As Table 11 shows, there is not a statistically significant difference between males' and females' perceptions of knowledge management competence of administrators in the subscales of capturing (p=.324, p>.05) and using (p=.617,p>.05) knowledge.In other words, women and men have similar perceptions about administrators' knowledge management perceptions in the subscales of capturing and using knowledge.
Table 12 shows the results of t test carried out to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference according to gender variable in sharing and storing knowledge subscales and knowledge management in general.As Table 12 shows, there is not a statistically significant difference between males' and females' perceptions of administrators' knowledge management competence in the subscales of sharing knowledge (p=.560, p>.05), storing knowledge (p=.350, p>.05) and knowledge management in general (p=.433, p>.05).In other words, females and males perceive the administrators' knowledge management, sharing and storing knowledge competence similarly.
Table 13 shows the results Kruskall Wallis H Test results carried out to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference in the perceptions of participants within the groups of seniority.Capturing and using knowledge subscales are analyzed.As Table 13 shows, there is not a statistically significant difference in participants' perceptions according to the variable of seniority in the subscales of capturing (p=.308, p>.05) and using (p=.347,p>.05) knowledge.
In other words, seniority doesn't make a statistically significant difference in participants' perceptions of  capturing and using knowledge competence of administrators.Table 14 shows the results of the One-Way Analysis of Variance carried out to compare the means of groups depending on seniority for a statistical significance in the subscales of sharing and storing knowledge and overall scale.As Table 14 shows, there is not a statistically significant difference between the groups analyzed in sharing (p=.955, p>.05) and storing (p=.965, p>.005) knowledge subscales.Additionally, there is not a statistically significant difference between the groups compared in the overall scale (p=.940, p>.05).
In other words, seniority does not create a statistically significant difference in participants' perceptions of sharing, storing knowledge and knowledge management competence of the administrators in general.
Table 15 shows the results of the Kruskall Wallis H Test carried out to compare the means of groups depending on branch for statistical difference in the subscales of capturing and using knowledge.As Table 15 shows, there is not a statistically significant difference between the groups analyzed in capturing (p=.701, p>.05) and using (p=.683,p>.05) knowledge subscales according to branch.In other words, branch does not create a statistically significant difference in participants' perceptions of administrators' capturing and using knowledge competencies.
Table 16 shows the results of the One-Way Analysis of Variance carried out to compare the means of groups depending on branch in the subscales of sharing and storing knowledge competence and knowledge management competence in general.As Table 16 shows, there is not a statistically significant difference between

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x ss KT Sd KO F p

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
This study investigates teachers' and administrators' perceptions of administrators' knowledge management competency.While teachers perceive high school administrators as being 'moderately competent' in the subscales of capturing, sharing, using, and storing knowledge and in knowledge management in general, administrators perceive themselves as being 'maximally competent'.This difference in teachers' and administrators' perceptions could stem from teachers' higher expectations about knowledge management competency.
In this respect, the results of this study overlap with those of Çınar (2002) who had similar results.In his study, Çınar also found that school principals and primary school inspectors perceived senior administrators as being moderately competent.Another study supporting the results here was carried out by Özsarıkamış (2009).In his study he found that the primary school teachers perceived primary school administrators' capturing knowledge competence as being 'moderate'; sharing,

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x ss KT Sd KO F p using and storing knowledge competence as being 'maximum'.When it comes to variables, no statistically significant difference was found between groups of gender, seniority and branch.In other words, teachers have similar perceptions of knowledge management competence of administrators regardless of their demographics.
Administrators must think over what information and data they need in order to evaluate how well work is carried out (Drucker, 1999).The main activity of a knowledge-generating organization is to enable other people to use knowledge that would otherwise remain personal and individual.This activity should be realized in every stage of organizational processes and at all times (Nonaka, 1999).
Organizations should be able to perform a number of roles and deploy various skills in capturing, distributing and using knowledge in order to be successful at knowledge management.Data and information are transformed into knowledge in cooperation by a number of individuals having particular values.This process should be handled by trained staffs who work on tasks that are specifically designed for the management of knowledge within the scope of definite and specific responsibilities and duties (Davenport and Prusak, 2001).
This study has demonstrated some differences between the perceptions of teachers and administrators regarding their competence at managing knowledge for certain aspects of this process.Further studies could be carried out, building on this research to assess how professional development of administrators can be improved with the aim of equipping educational organizations to better meet the knowledge demands of the information society.

Table 1 .
The results of the reliability analysis.

Table 2 .
Normality test of the overall scale and subscales.

Table 3 .
Evaluation ranges of the nominal arithmetic means.
(p=.200, p>.05) display a normal distribution.So, parametric tests were used to compare the variables in these subscales and overall scale.A 5-point Likert scale was used in the study.The options of the scale was as follows 'always', 'often', 'sometimes', 'very rarely' and 'never'.Table3presents the evaluation criteria of the arithmetic means.

Table 4 .
Occupational status of the participants.

Table 5 .
Gender of participants.
had a work experience of 6 to 0 years; 8.63% of them had a work experience of 1 to 5 years and only 1.02% of them had a work experience less than a year.As Table7shows, 52.79 % (n=104) of participants

Table 7 .
Branch/Faculty of participants.

Table 8 .
Means and standard deviations of the scale and subascales.

Table 9 .
Mann Whitney U test results of knowledge management competence according to task variable.

Table 10 .
t test results between teachers' and administrators' perceptions in the subscales of sharing knowledge and storing knowledge.

Table 11 .
Mann Whitney U test results according to gender.

Table 12 .
t test results according to gender variable.

Table 13 .
Kruskall Wallis H test according to the variable of seniority.

Table 14 .
ANOVA results of seniority groups in subscales of sharing and storing knowledge.

Table 16 .
Results of one-way analysis of variance.