Inspection Digital Literacy for School Improvement

Abstract

Educational inspection, as an essential part of the current educational environment, supports its mission through more pragmatic and comprehensive processes, techniques, and models, which guarantee the right of students to quality education. The aim of the present study was to determine the causal effect of gender and age on the dimensions of the instrument in the inspector population. Specifically, 118 male and female inspectors from the Educational Inspection Service of Andalusia (Spain) participated, with an average age of 47.56 years (±5.70). In terms of gender, 30 were women (25.40%) and 88 were men (74.60%). An instrument was developed specifically for this study with the purpose of assessing the participants’ opinions of the extent to which their work contributes to educational improvement. The results evidenced the relationship between the dimensions of the instrument: attention to members of the educational community (AMEC), supervision of guidance and tutorial action (SGTA), attention and inclusion of diversity (AID), and technological resources (TR) (p < 0.01). Similarly, the multigroup model obtained good structural validity (χ2 = 68.180; RMSEA = 0.078; GFI = 0.923; CFI = 0.959; IFI = 0.967). In terms of gender, no significant differences were obtained, although the results were moderately superior among males compared to females. In relation to age, younger inspectors had better TR results, and older inspectors had better AMEC and SGTA results. The conclusions strengthen the importance of the Education Inspection Service in educational establishments, highlighting the need to supervise the processes of attention and inclusion for diversity. A great deal of resistance was observed, especially as there is a lack of training in information and communication technology (ICT).