Development of Academic Leadership Scale: A Study of Validity and Reliability

Abstract

Leadership is considered as an ancient and multidimensional concept. Due to its contribution to the development of academic staff, the creation of a common culture in line with the interests and needs of stakeholders and the vision of the institution, and the distribution of workload, performance evaluation and management of resource use, academic leadership is associated with the concepts of professional development, higher education culture, and higher education management. The 50-item draft scale prepared by reviewing the related literature was given to 57 faculty members in the piloting stage, 490 faculty members in the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) stage, and 200 faculty members in the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) stage. The sample of the study was chosen by using the maximum variation sampling method. The three sub-dimensions (professional development, higher education culture and higher education administration) obtained as a result of the EFA applied to reveal the construct validity of the scale were also confirmed by the CFA. The reliability of the scale was found by calculating the Cronbach's alpha coefficient and each of its three sub-dimensions was found to be highly reliable. The results show that the Academic Leadership Scale is a valid and reliable measurement tool that can be used to reveal the academic leadership perceptions of faculty members.