The Development of the Digital Leadership Indicators of the School Directors under the Office of Primary Educational Service Areas

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to; 1) study the indicators of digital leadership of school directors under the Office of Primary Education Service Areas; and 2) check the concurrent validity of the Digital Leadership Indicators of the School Directors under the Office of Primary Educational Service Areas. There were three steps in the conduct of the research methodologies. The three steps were as follows; 1. the digital leadership indicators of the school directors were studied; 2. suitability of the digital leadership indicators of the school directors under the Office of Primary Education Service Areas was examined. The research was conducted in 200 schools under the Office of Primary Education Areas during the Academic Year 2019. The selected schools were located in the provinces of Nakhon Chai Burin, Nakhon Ratchasima, Chaiyapum, Buriram, and Surin. There were 600 participants in the study who held the following positions: school director, academic head, and department head. The research instrument was a 5-point rating scale questionnaire consisting of 8 aspects, totaling 76 items with discriminant index of 0.23-0.85 and reliability of 0.78-0.94. The survey component analysis was conducted by using a computer program. The last step was the research methodology that verified the concurrent validity of the digital leadership indicators by 30 experts in the Office of Primary Education Service Areas. The instrument utilized was a 5-point rating scale questionnaire consisted of 8 aspects, totaling 58 items. The data were analyzed by using mean, Standard Deviation (S.D.), and one sample t-test.

The findings indicated that: 1) digital leadership of school directors under the Office of Primary Education Service Areas comprised of 8 components with 58 indicators; 11 indicators for knowledge and ability about digital technology; 10 indicators for developing learners with digital technology; 6 indicators for using digital technology for communication; 8 indicators for being digital transformation leaders; 7 indicators for working as a team by using digital technology; 6 indicators for having digital visions; 5 indicators for developing digital technology innovation; and 5 indicators for self-development regarding digital technology. The digital leadership variance of school directors under the Office of Primary Education Service Areas can be explained as 67.44 percent. The digital leadership indicators of the School Directors under the Office of Primary Educational Service Areas were proved as the concurrent validity ones.