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Background: In an era of technology, school administrators have started to be expected to undertake new leadership roles in using and practicing technology (Wheatley, 2006; Afshari and others, 2009; Hacıfazlıoğlu, Karadeniz and Dalgıç 2010; Razik and Swanson, 2010). Prensky (2006) calls today’s students ‘digital natives’, and postulates that schools need to transform their settings in line with this new technological era. In this respect school administrators are expected to attribute certain competencies as technology leaders. Başaran defines competency as having the necessary knowledge and talent to perform certain behavior. Self efficacy appears as a concept that aligns with Bandura’s (1977) theory, which asserts that a person`s beliefs or an expectation about his/her capacity to accomplish certain tasks successfully or demonstrate certain behaviors is mediated by self-efficacy (cited Bandura, 1997). Therefore it has become a necessity for school leaders to gain and develop certain competences in order to realize their responsibilities as technology leaders. If school administrators have high self-esteem, they might feel more motivated to implement changes and innovation as technology leaders. There is scarcity of empirical evidence with regards to school administrators’ competencies as technology leaders. Only a small number of studies were found to develop scales within the frame of technology leadership competencies (Afshari and others, 2009; Akbaba-Altun and Gürer, 2008; Anderson and Dexter, 2005; Can, 2003, 2008; ISTE, 2002, 2009; Yu and Durrington, 2006, Banoğlu, 2011). These studies used ISTE technology leadership standards most of the time. Therefore there is an urgent need for standard scales that measure the competency level of school administrators as technology leaders. This study is expected to present a scale that could be applied to determine the competency level of school administrators as technology leaders. This study is focused on the perceptions of school administrators and reflect their self efficacy levels.
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to adapt the technological leadership standards (NETS-A), which was developed by ISTE 2009 into Turkish and to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool to determine the level of technological leadership self-efficacy of school administrators. The scale was entitled as TELÖY (Technology Leadership Competency Scale for School Administrators), by using the Turkish initials.
Method: The study was conducted on 364 school administrators using the availability sampling method. In order to test the compatibility of the data for factor analysis, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Barlett Sphericity tests were used. The scale is composed of two parts. The first part is made up of demographic questions like age, gender, education, length of service as administrator, location of the school, school type and in-service training on technology. The second part is made up of 5 dimensions of ISTE (2009) technological leadership standards (“visionary leadership”, “digital age learning culture”, “excellence in professional practice”, “systemic improvement”, and “digital citizenship”) and their 21 sub items. The standards were translated into Turkish by researchers. Then the necessary changes were made considering the corrections and suggestions of five linguists. For the clarity and comprehensibility of the items, the tool was given to 15 school administrators to get their feedback. To provide content validity, the draft form of the scale was examined by 3 specialists in the area on the 5 point Likert Scale.
In order to test whether the ISTE (2009) established dimensionality of factor pattern fits the new data, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used. CFA was computed by Lisrel 8.7 statistics software. The efficiency of CFA was evaluated by using some other Fit Indexes: Chi-Square Goodness of Fit (χ2), Goodness of Fit Index (GFI), Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Normed Fit Index (NFI), Root Mean Square Residuals (RMR), Standardized Root Mean Square Residuals (SRMR) and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA).
For the reliability analysis of the scale, in order to determine the perception of self-efficacy of school leaders regarding five sub factors of technological leadership, the following tests were applied: Cronbach Alpha coefficient, Pearson product moment correlation analysis, corrected item-total correlations and t-test.
Findings: In the factor analysis, each factor was found in a significant relationship with the whole scale and each sub factor. Lambda values of the factors range from .73 to .88. t-test values range from 15.84 to 20.74 and all of them were significant. The correlations between factors range from .76 to .98. The average points for the whole scale was 80.00 (sd=17.158) and it was between 11.49 and 19.01 for the factors. According to CFA, χ2=423.40 (df=179, p>.05) and the value of χ2/df was 2.37. The results of Fit Indexes were as follows: RMSEA .06, GFI .90, AGFI .87, RMR .035, SRMR .032, NFI .98, NNFI .99, CFI .99. Cronbach Alpha coefficient was .97 for the whole scale, ranging between .83 and .92 for the factors of the scale. Corrected item-total correlations ranged from .65 to .82. The value of t test regarding the comparison of whole scale points and factor based for points of low 27% and high 27% groups ranged as 12.94 and 20.97 and found to be statistically significant at the level of p<.01.
Results: At the end of the study a valid and reliable tool for determining the self-efficacy of school administrators regarding technological leadership was developed. The results of Cronbach Alpha coefficient, Pearson product moment correlation, corrected item-total correlations and t-test indicate high reliability. According to the results of CFA, the standardized factor loadings of the model are high and t-values are significant. The results of Fit Indexes indicate a good model fit. TELÖY scale is expected to be used as a useful tool in designing in-service training programmes for school administrators. The scale can also be used as a self evaluation tool for school administrators.
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