Assessing teachers’ technology leadership in higher education: The application of ISTE standards in China

The rapid advancement of educational technologies worldwide and the ubiquitousness of technology-integrated teaching and learning have posed great challenges to teachers. Technology leadership is an emerging focus among educators, it involves using technologies to lead learners’ knowledge, abilities, and values development. However, there are few available scales that can evaluate its level among teachers in China. We proposed a model based on the new version of the ISTE Standard for Educators and addressed a set of indicators. This study developed and validated a 24-item teachers’ technology leadership scale (TTLS) through theoretical review, expert advice, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis. This study reports the results through analysis of responses from 604 Chinese university students. Our findings revealed good reliability and validity in the scale but demonstrated a three-construct model that differs from the original seven-dimension framework, thus highlighting the characteristics of the Chinese context. This study contributes to a growing body of research that aims to provide researchers, educators, and policymakers with a tool (TTLS) that can be used as a reliable assessment scale for measuring teachers’ level of technology leadership, thus supporting their development in three domains regarding leadership, technology integration ability, and digital responsibility.