Development of the educational leadership scale for nursing students: a methodological study

BACKGROUND: Educational leadership is one of the most demanding skills for healthcare staff to enhance the quality of health care. There is a need for a scale to evaluate the educational leadership levels of nurses. The objective of this study was to develop and examine the validity and reliability of the Education Leadership Scale for Nursing Students. METHODS: Data were collected from 280 Turkish nursing students. The validity and reliability of the tool were confirmed with exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, Cronbach’s alpha and Pearson correlation. The scale was developed in five stages (reviewing the literature, developing items, sending scale items to the experts for content validity index, piloting test with students, performing the validity and reliability analysis of the tool). RESULTS: The Educational Leadership Scale for Nursing Students consisted of 19 items and a three factor structure. Confirmatory factor analysis results showed that there was a sufficient model fit. Construct validity was verified, and Cronbach’s α level of all factors was found to be greater than 0.70. CONCLUSIONS: The currently developed scale can measure the educational leadership characteristics of nursing students.