The development of an instrument to determine the relevance and validity of the Educational Leadership Constituent Council (ELCC) Standards for Advanced Programs in Educational Leadership.

The Educational Leadership Constituent Council (ELCC), in 2002, created Standards for Advanced Preparation Programs in Educational Leadership. The purposes of this study, using Texas superintendents, were to: (1) design an instrument using the ELCC standards, (2) determine the validity and reliability of the instrument, (3) investigate constructs derived from factor analysis of participant responses, (4) revise the instrument if necessary, and (5) assess the relevancy of the standards.
Eight research questions were used. The first six research questions were organized around the following statement: Were constructs derived from the factor analysis that could be interpreted as the ELCC Standards 1-6, i.e., Vision, Instruction, Management, Community/Collaboration, Ethics, and Larger Context? Research questions seven and eight included: Were there other constructs than those identified by the ELCC as Vision, Instruction, Management, Collaboration/Community, Ethics, or Larger Context? Did any significant differences exist between Texas superintendents’ perceptions by degree type with respect to the relevance of the ELCC Standards? In the fall of 2007, superintendents in Texas were invited to participate in the study by completing the 68 item questionnaire developed from six of the seven ELCC Standards. From a total population of 1031 district superintendents, 204 (20%) responded. Reliability Cronbach Alpha Coefficients, at the .75 level or above, established reliable questions for all constructs except Ethics. However, the two highest rated items in this study were related to the superintendents’ ethical behavior. The data were further analyzed using factor analysis to answer the first seven research questions and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to answer research question eight. Vision, Instruction, Management, and Community/Collaboration correlated highly with four factors. Factor five and six were named (labeled) “Learning and Research” and “Planning for Practice,” using keywords from statements that were associated with these factors. Only one significant difference was found when comparing construct and factor mean responses by superintendents with different levels of education. Several recommendations for practice and research were presented. One recommendation for practice was that preparation program faculty could use the new or revised survey instrument to conduct program evaluations. A recommendation for research was that future researchers could use the survey questionnaire to investigate the relevancy of the ELCC Standards in other states.