The Relationship between Different Types of Thinking and Innovation of School Managers

Mokhtar Ranjbar(Corresponding author, Assistant Professor, Department of Management, Lamerd Branch, Islamic Azad University, Lamerd, Iran) ranjbarmokhtar@yahoo.com Solaiman Rashidi(Master of Educational Research, Lamerd Branch, Islamic Azad University, Lamerd, Iran)     The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between different types of thinking and innovation among school managers. This research is applied in terms of method, descriptive-correlation. The statistical population of the study includes all school managers in Mohr city that are 57 persons. Due to the limited statistical population, the census method was used to select the sample and the entire statistical society was considered. For data collection, Harrison & Bramson Standard Thinking Questionnaire (2002) and Zare'i Innovation Scale (2006) were used. For the Thinking Questionnaire, the reliability coefficient was 0.81 for Cronbach's alpha and 0.86 for the Innovation Questionnaire, which have high reliability. In order to achieve the desired validity of the questionnaires, the validity of the content was evaluated by the opinion the supervisor. Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 19, descriptive statistics at first level and inferential statistics methods (Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Pearson correlation coefficient, regression analysis, t-test for two samples Independent) has been used. The results of the research showed that there is a significant relationship between thinking styles (pragmatism and realism) and innovation of school principals in the city of Mohr. However, there is no meaningful relationship between the thinking styles (combining, idealism and analyticity) and the innovation of the school principals in the city of Mohr. Thinking styles (combining, pragmatism, and realism) have been significant predictors of innovation (cultural dimension). Thinking styles (idealism, pragmatism, and realism) have been significant predictors of innovation (structural dimension).