Session Information
ERG SES D 02, Psychology and Education
Paper Session
Contribution
Depression which means hole, collapse was used in the 14th century for the first time. Then it placed in some languages such as Latin, French and English and the concept of depression is one of the most popular subject in psychology (Nişanyan, 2012; Valpy, 1828). Accordig to the data of World Health Organization, 121 million of people are in depression (Lewis, 2012).
Cohen and Cohen (1993) states that organizations might become ill as people do. Organizations are defined as a group that people come together to reach specific targets work collaboratley in a coordination (Aytaç, 2004). And when the organizations do not reach their expectations, do not see a future or encounter th danger of extinction, they are affected badly and give some reactions that has negative effect for itself. One of these psychological reactions is organizational depression (Bilchik, 2000; Cohen ve Cohen,1993). According to Bilchik (2000), organizational depression is stagnation in the orgaization, not planning the future, not not having vision and giving up trying.
Feeling of hopelessness is common in organizations which have depression. Employees think that organization is worthless and guilty because of the negative events there. Moreover, they don’t have positive expectations about the organization. For that reason, there is no dynamism, on the contrary, employees seem and behave like walking dead. Most of the time, organization does not have a vision, it is closed to new opinions and innovations (Dökmen, 2013).
Depression emerged in the organization may affect its environment as well. If depression appears in a company, depression can only affect a small number of people, but if depression appears in a school, it can lead to big damage in the country. Because, schools are educational organizations and individuals can be affected easily through education. One of the most important factor that shape psychological structure of school is school principals. Their attitude plays an important role on people who work in schools (Şişman, 2004). In other words, school principals are the key element, because they might lead to appear or disappear depression in the schools. In this context, this study aims to determine views of teachers concerning organizational depression at high schools. The study will respond the research questions below:
- What are the characteristics that make teachers happy or melancholic in the organization?
- What are the teachers’ perceptions concerning organizational depression at High school?
Method
This study is designed as a phenomenological research. Phenomenology is people’s conscious experiences, namely their daily life and social activities (Schram, 2003). Phenomenology is a descriptive process that describes experiences of a phenomenon or a concept (Van Manen, 1990; as cited in Creswell, 2014). In this study, phenomenogical design is prefered to describe the perceptions of teachers concerning organizational depression. Participants in this study are 20 teachers who studied at different High schools in Van province. Participants were identified according to purposeful sampling method. Data will be collected by using semi-structured interviews. During the data collection process, all interviews were audio-recorded. The participants were coded as T1, T2, T3,.. (it means Teacher1, 2, 3, …). Open-ended questions were asked all participants and interviews took approximately 25-30 minutes. To analyze the qualitative data, descriptive analysis was used in the study.
Expected Outcomes
Teachers stated that some topics such as participating decisions, implementation of decisions, student behavior, innovation and change play an important role on the perceptions of depression in schools. Almost all of the teachers want to work in the schools that there exist more successful students, have better conditions, have flexible programs, and not based on exam system. Furthermore, they thought that if it is endeavored, it may be found out a suitable environment to fulfill innovation and expectations. And this opinion supports that teachers have expectations because the conditions are not good enough and they try to change something in their organizations.
References
Aytaç, Ö. (2004). Örgütsel sosyolojik bir perspektif. Fırat Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 14(1), 189-217. Bilchik, G. S. (2000). Organizational depression. H&HN: Hospitals & Health Networks, 74(2), 34-38. Cohen, W. & Cohen, N. (1993) The Paranoid Corporotion: And 8 other ways your company can be crazy. Advice from on organizational shrink. Newyork American Management Assocation. Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research Design. (4th ed). The United States of America: Sage Publications. Dökmen, Ü. (2013). Küçük şeyler 1. (31. Baskı). İstanbul: Sistem Yayıncılık. Lewis, B. (2012). Depression. Newyork: Routledge. Nişanyan, S. (2012). Sözlerin soyağacı. (3. Baskı). İstanbul: Everest Yayınları. Schram, T. (2003) Conceptualizing qualitative inquiry: Mindwork for fieldwork in education and the social sciences. New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall. Şişman, M. (2004). Öğretim liderliği. (2. Baskı). Ankara: Pegem Akademi Yayıncılık. Valpy, F. E. J. (1828). Etymological dictionary of Latin language. London: Longman company.
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