Perceptions of elementary and middle school teachers about the role of organizational gossip on school climate: Role of organizational gossip on school climate

The aim of the study is to determine the role of organizational gossip on the school climate according to the perceptions of elementary and middle school teachers. The population of this research which was carried out in the correlational survey model consists of teachers working in elementary and middle schools in the central district of Rize (in Turkey) and its other districts in the 2020-2021 academic year. In the study, the simple random sampling method was used in order to sample and 440 teachers were included in the research group. After 13 of the 440 data are eliminated because of missing values, the sample group consists of 427 teachers. The data were collected through the "Organizational Gossip Scale" developed by Han and Dağlı (2018), the "School Climate Survey" developed by Kavgacı (2010), and the "Personal Information Form" to gather demographic characteristics of participants. As a result of the research, it was determined that teachers' perceptions of organizational gossip and the levels of school climate were moderate, and a low level negative and significant relationship was found between organizational gossip and school climate. According to the regression analysis, it was concluded that organizational gossip is a significant predictor of school climate and explains 7% of the variance of school climate. Keywords: Organizational gossip; school climate; elementary school; middle school; teacher