Measuring Principals’ Data-Informed Decision-Making on High-Impact Strategies

Abstract

We collected data from 691 teachers from 139 schools in Michigan to validate the instrument titled Data-informed Decision-making on High-impact Strategies, designed based on Marzano's (2003) 11 high-impact strategies. Results of confirmatory factor analysis strongly supported the 11-factor model as the most valid approach to measure teachers’ perceptions of their principals’ data-informed decision-making on high-impact strategies for the improvement of student achievement. According to Marzano's (2003) framework, the 11 factors fall into three categories of higher-order principal leadership concerning schools, teachers, and students. The higher-order-factor model came quite close to the 11-factor model in terms of model-data-fit so that the instrument could be used with satisfactory construct validity in the research of higher-order principal leadership. The scale property analysis showed favorable results for the 11-factor model and the higher-order-factor model. Implications of the results are discussed.