Innovative School: A Scale Development Study

Abstract

In 21st century, the century of information and technology, it has been inevitable to witness lots of advancements and innovations in every sector like education, health, industry, environment, politics etc. In this regard, this study, focusing on the change and innovations in the educational sector, aims to contribute to the literature by developing “Innovative School Development Scale”. The sample of the study consists of 822 educators. In the study, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (EFA) are used in order to test the structural validity of the measurement scale. After items with lower than 0.30 factor loading value were excluded and so a structure composed of 6 dimension and 45 items is constructed according to the EFA results, it is confirmed by the CFA and desired goodness fit values are achieved. Moreover, in order to test the reliability of the scale; Cronbach Alpha internal consistency, item total score correlation and independent t-test with 27% higher and 27% lower groups analyses were conducted. Cronbach’s Alpha values of the scale after EFA and CFA are calculated as 0.959 and 0.962. It has been found that item total correlation coefficients of the scale ranges between r=0.30 and r=0.87 for the EFA and between r=0.55 and 0.86 for the CFA. Findings of the independent t-test with 27% higher and lower groups show that the items are well-discriminated. Based on the findings of all these analyses, it is concluded that this Innovative School Development Scale is a valid and reliable measurement scale.