The Development of a New Instrument Comparing Teacher and Principal Perceptions of School Technology Leadership

Use of technology in education is rapidly growing in terms of dollars spent annually. With such enormous expenditures for schools, stewardship of human and capital resources via leadership feels vital. School technology leadership is a specialty area of educational leadership with a focus on how leaders address technology issues within their schools and guide others through successful implementation. As the body of research continues to grow, measurement instruments can assist researchers and practitioners in understanding the implementation and adoption of new technologies, and their relationship to leadership. The purpose of this study was to analyze the current literature on school technology leadership, develop an instrument to measure school technology leadership, and pilot the instrument to understand its scores and make inferences. An article manuscript is presented which analyzes the current literature through a thematic review. A second article manuscript details the development and testing of an instrument to measure school technology leadership from the perspective of teachers in regard to their principals’ technology leadership skills. The findings from this study suggest instruments measuring school technology leadership should be reviewed on an annual basis to assess whether the instrument is truly measuring what it is intended to measure and whether that corresponds with the latest literature within the field. The pilot instrument showed a difference in responses between teachers and principals in three of five dimensions analyzed. Overall, the instrument functioned well, however, additional research with a larger sample could yield better insight on the five dimensions examined.