Educational Leadership Scale for Nursing Students

Authors

Purpose

Historically, the measurement of nursing leadership has been heavily skewed toward clinical practice, leaving a notable void in tools tailored for the academic and formative stages of a nurse's career. While instruments like the Self-Assessment Leadership Instrument (SALI) exist, they do not adequately capture the unique nuances of Educational Leadership—the ability of Students to influence their learning environments, mentor peers, and engage in interprofessional teamwork.

This scale addresses that critical gap by offering a validated metric specifically for Nursing Students. For researchers and curriculum developers, particularly in regions where leadership training has been underemphasized in nursing education, this tool is invaluable. It allows academic institutions to systematically evaluate the efficacy of their programs, transition toward evidence-based active learning strategies, and ensure their graduates meet international standards for healthcare leadership.

Construct

The psychological construct of Educational Leadership in this context is conceptualized as a multidimensional skill set that enables Students to motivate others, achieve shared goals, and actively shape their educational environment. Rather than viewing leadership as a purely innate trait, this framework treats it as a developmental competency that can be nurtured through targeted education.

The scale's theoretical foundation rests on Bloom's taxonomy, a classic educational framework that categorizes learning objectives into cognitive (knowledge), affective (attitude), and behavioral (psychomotor) domains. The instrument operationalizes these domains through three distinct subscales: Visionary Leadership, Instructional Leadership, and Scientific Leadership. By mapping the items to Bloom's taxonomy, the scale ensures a holistic assessment, capturing not just what Students know about leadership, but how they feel about it and how they enact it in collaborative settings.

Validity

To ensure the instrument accurately measures what it claims to, the researchers employed a rigorous, multi-faceted validation strategy. Face validity was established quantitatively by having a subset of Students rate the importance of each item, retaining only those with an impact score above the standard threshold of 1.5. This ensures the target population finds the questions relevant and understandable.

Content validity was scrutinized by a panel of 14 experts, including faculty and clinical managers, who evaluated the cultural relevance and clarity of the translated items. They utilized established psychometric indices, specifically targeting a Content Validity Ratio (CVR) above 0.49 and a Content Validity Index (CVI) of 0.79 or higher. These stringent cutoffs guarantee that the items are both necessary and highly relevant to the construct of Educational Leadership within the specific cultural context of the target population.

Reliability

Reliability testing focused on both the internal consistency of the items and the temporal stability of the scale over time. Internal consistency, which indicates how well the items within the scale correlate with one another, was evaluated using both Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's Omega coefficients. The original development of the scale demonstrated excellent internal consistency with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.92, setting a strong precedent for the adapted version.

To confirm that the scale produces stable results across different time points—a crucial feature for any tool meant to track developmental progress—the researchers incorporated a test-retest reliability phase. By administering the scale to a subsample of 47 Students twice, with a 14-day interval, they calculated the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC). Targeting an ICC of 0.75 or higher ensures that the variance in scores reflects true differences in leadership capabilities rather than transient measurement error.

Factor Analysis

The structural integrity of the translated scale was evaluated using a split-sample cross-validation approach, a gold standard in psychometric adaptation. From the total sample of 469 Students, data from 160 participants were subjected to Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) with Varimax rotation to uncover the underlying latent variables without imposing preconceived structures.

Subsequently, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted on the remaining 309 participants to verify how well the empirical data fit the established three-factor model (Visionary, Instructional, and Scientific Leadership). The researchers established rigorous a priori criteria for model fit, including a Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) below 0.08 and Comparative Fit Index (CFI) values exceeding 0.90. This dual-analysis strategy robustly demonstrates whether the original factor structure holds up when applied to a new cultural and linguistic demographic.

Subscales

Subscale	Items	Description
Visionary Leadership	10 items	Assesses the student's ability to inspire peers, conceptualize future goals, and demonstrate forward-thinking behaviors in an educational context.
Instructional Leadership	5 items	Evaluates competencies related to facilitating learning, mentoring peers, and creating supportive educational environments.
Scientific Leadership	4 items	Measures the student's engagement with evidence-based practices, research integration, and academic rigor within their nursing education.

Instrument

Test Type	Self-report questionnaire
Format	19 items, 5-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = Never Disagree to 5 = Strongly Agree)
Scoring	Total scores are calculated by summing the responses, yielding a range of 19 to 95. Higher scores indicate greater levels of Educational Leadership. There are no reverse-scored items.
Language	Persian
Population	Students, Nurses
Administration	In-person administration

Scoring & Interpretation Guidelines

Scoring Instructions

All 19 items are positively worded and directly summed. No reverse scoring is required.

Educational Leadership Scale for Nursing Students Items

Sample

The study sample consisted of 469 second- to fourth-year Nursing Students recruited via convenience sampling from nursing faculties in Kermanshah Province, Iran. The sample was randomly split into two cohorts: 160 Students for Exploratory Factor Analysis and 309 Students for Confirmatory Factor Analysis. An additional subsample of 47 Students was utilized for test-retest reliability.

Permissions & Test Year

Permission for translation and cultural adaptation was obtained from the original developers of the scale.

Test Year: 2025