The study of the development and implementation of the digital leadership skills scale of school principals according to teacher perceptions

This research aims to develop a valid and reliable scale that measures the digital leadership skills of school principals according to teacher perceptions. The research utilized a descriptive survey approach from quantitive research approach. Digital leadership has been defined as the process by which education manag ers transform learning environments by using digital technologies effectively, reconstruct teaching processes and establish digital communication with stakeholders. The scale development process was carried out on the eight stage model, initially a 100 ite m pool was created. The research was carried out in three stages. Data were collected from 298 teachers for Exploratory Factor Analysis, 471 teachers for Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and 313 teachers for the implementation phase. The participants consist of teachers working in kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools in different provinces of Turkey. The results of the EFA showed that the scale has a three factor structure. These factors were named as "Creating and Following a Digital Vision", "U sing Digital Tools in Corporate Management" and "Taking Measures Against Possible Dangers in the Digitalization Process". The KMO value was found to be 0.926, the Bartlett sphericity test was significant, and three factors explained 67% of the total varian ce. In the CFA findings, the model fit indices were found to be at an excellent level. The values of CFI 0.997, TLI 0.996, RMSEA 0.075 revealed that the model fits very well with the data. The factor loads were changed between 0.694 0.920, Decoupling 79 items during the item elimination process and obtaining a final scale of 21 items. Cronbach's Alpha values were found to be quite high in reliability analyses. After CFA, values of 0.967 were obtained in the general scale and 0.959 in the application g roup. In terms of demographic variables, it has been found that male teachers perceive the digital leadership skills of school principals to be significantly higher than female teachers. A significant difference was observed between the end groups in the o ccupational seniority variable. This study has developed a valid and reliable measurement tool for evaluating the digital leadership skills of school principals in Turkey and makes an important contribution to eliminating the lack of digital leadership lit erature in the field of educational management.