Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify the factors of professional development of Iranian school principals in order to provide a suitable model with a qualitative-exploratory approach and using thematic analysis with inductive approach.
Materials and Methods: The research environment included the first category of resources of valid Internet databases and scientific databases in the period 2004 to 2020 and 2008 to 1399 in the field of professional development studies of managers. In order to collect the initial themes, 68 articles and internal and external books were studied in a series of purposive sampling method (instead of selecting a fixed sample, the sample size increases until it is enough). Reached theoretical saturation. After coding and categorizing 118 primary themes, its content validity was performed in two methods: qualitative and quantitative (checking the degree of agreement of each theme using content validity coefficient). Using Holstie coefficient, the reliability of the themes was estimated to be 0.96.
Findings: The network of themes consisting of 3 comprehensive themes (individual, internal, external) and 9 organizing themes and 104 basic themes were drawn. The factors identified in this study show that the professional development of school principals is the basis for the development of education. Because leadership in schools has a direct impact on learners and plays a key role in developing the quality of student learning.
Conclusion: It is obvious that the professional development of principals is a means to survive and improve the effectiveness of schools