Mafratoğlu, R., Altinay, F., Koç, A., Dagli, G., & Altinay, Z. (2023). Developing a School Improvement Scale to Transform Education into being Sustainable and Quality Driven. SAGE Open, 13(1), 21582440231157584.
Researchers from the Faculty of Education at Near East University have developed a comprehensive 'School Improvement Scale (SIS)' aimed at evaluating and enhancing school development through teachers' perspectives. This scale, consisting of 33 items across 5 dimensions, emerged as a robust and reliable measurement tool following rigorous validation processes.
The study, conducted in Bursa with 1,043 teachers in 2021, emphasized the crucial need for a valid and dependable scale in assessing process-oriented school improvement initiatives. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value (.97) and the significant Bartlett test’s chi-square value validated the scale's appropriateness for further analysis.
Through exploratory factor analysis, the SIS was refined into five key dimensions: effective leadership, school climate, teacher professional improvement, learning environment, and vision-mission, elucidating 69% of the total variance. The confirmatory factor analysis with a different sample group affirmed the scale's structural integrity and compatibility.
Furthermore, the SIS demonstrated high internal consistency, validated by Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient, indicating its reliability as a tool for measuring school improvement. This achievement underscores its potential as a valuable instrument to gauge and enhance the current developmental status of primary, secondary, and high schools.
By empowering educators with a reliable tool to evaluate schools, the SIS facilitates evidence-based decision-making, leading to improvements in educational quality and infrastructure. The study's authors suggest further validation and expansion of the scale to encompass broader stakeholders, including students, parents, and the wider school community. Such an expansion could contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of school dynamics and pave the way for targeted interventions, aligning with the broader SDGs' call for inclusive and equitable education.
In summary, the 'School Improvement Scale' represents a significant step toward enhancing educational quality, offering a reliable measurement tool to assess and elevate school development, ultimately contributing to the global pursuit of inclusive and quality education for all.
For further details, access the original paper from the publisher's link:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/21582440231157584
