The Validity and Reliability Studies of Distributed Leadership Scale for School Organizations

Abstract

Schools, which have a multi-structured body because of their functions, need all the staff to work together in means of their abilities and expertise in order to realize the educational and administrative procedures in success. Such an organizational function to be realized and continued may only be possible through the distributed leadership approach. Distributed leadership can be defined as a leadership perception which depends on the idea of responsibility and voluntariness among all stakeholders about realizing the organizations goals. The aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable scale measuring teachers’ perceptions of distributed leadership in their schools. 228 state and private school teachers working in province of Malatya constitute the study group of the research. In order to test validity of the scale, the data obtained were subjected both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and also item-total correlations besides Cronbach’s Alpha (α) coefficient and test-retest correlation coefficient were estimated. Findings have shown that the scale has five-factor structure. All the validity and reliability analysis carried out show that Distributed Leadership Scale for School Organizations (DLSSO) has high internal consistency and validity and can be used for measuring the teachers’ perceptions of distributed leadership in their schools.