The purpose of this study was to develop a multiphasic leadership scale for principals of early childhood education institutions. It's specifically meant to develop and validate an instrument geared toward measuring the leadership of principals of ear... The purpose of this study was to develop a multiphasic leadership scale for principals of early childhood education institutions. It's specifically meant to develop and validate an instrument geared toward measuring the leadership of principals of early childhood education institutions in multiphasic ways in order to effectively respond to complicated, fast-changing surroundings and needs for sustainable education. The following efforts were made to serve the purpose of the study: 1. Select content elements and items for a draft multiphasic leadership scale for principals of early childhood education institutions. 1) Select the categories and components of the draft scale. 2) Select the items of the draft scale. 2. Investigate the item quality of the draft multiphasic leadership scale for principals of early childhood education institutions. 1) Investigate the item response distribution of the draft scale. 2) Investigate the item discrimination of the draft scale. 3. Validate the draft multiphasic leadership scale for principals of early childhood education institutions. 1) Investigate the validity of the draft scale. 2) Investigate the reliability of the draft scale. First of all, the concept and components of the leadership of principals of early childhood education institutions were analyzed based on earlier studies, and another earlier studies related to leadership scales for school principals and principals of early childhood education institutions were additionally analyzed. And then the multiphasic leadership of principals of early childhood education institutions was conceptualized into four different levels in consideration of the organizational characteristics of these educational institutions: personal level, interpersonal level, collective level and organizational level. After the categories and components of leadership at each level were analyzed based on the scales used in earlier studies related to principals of schools and early childhood education institutions, 140 preliminary items were selected. A focus group interview was conducted on six selected principals of early childhood education institutions to review the categories, components and items of each level that were selected based on the results of the literature analysis. The principals were informed about the results of a content analysis of the data that were gathered through the literature analysis, and the categories, components and items of each level were modified based on the results of the focus group interview. A primary draft that consisted of 153 items were prepared in this way. A group of 30 experts was asked to rate the appropriateness and importance of the levels, categories, components and items of the primary draft on a five-point Likert scale, and they also were asked to give their opinions if they had any additional opinions. As a result, seven items whose CVR values were below the minimum 0.33(27, 38, 52, 83, 113, 116 and 140 respectively) were eliminated from among the 153 items, and some items were also removed or modified according to the opinions of the experts. After 100 inservice teachers were selected, a preliminary test was conducted with the secondary draft that was composed of 110 items, and the item response distribution and item discrimination of it were analyzed to test item quality. As a result, item No. 5 whose skewness absolute value was above 1 was eliminated. The mean, standard deviation, kurtosis and discrimination index of every item were appropriate when an item analysis was made. A main test was conducted on 323 selected inservice teachers with the tertiary draft of 109 items that was drawn up in this way. In exploratory factor analysis, factor loading .40 or more was considered statistically significant, and a variable whose factor loading is .50 or more could be regarded as an important variable(Min, 2013; Park, 2000; Hwang, et. al., 2011). In this study, factor loading .50 or more was selected as the standard to select factors with high explainability(Seo, Kwon, Park, 1999; Ji, Kim, 2015). Although the factor loading of item No. 28 that seemed to be an important item for the multiphasic leadership of principals of early childhood education institutions was .43, this item was finally included after having an discussion with the experts because it seemed to be mandatory at the organizational level. When a confirmatory factor analysis was made to test the goodness of fit of the model, the items were all accepted at the .001 level of significance, which implied that the measurement variables reflected well the potential variables. The usability of the multiphasic leadership scale for principals of early childhood education institutions that was finalized in this way and consisted of 87 items was tested. To test the concurrent validity of it, a correlation analysis was made between that and a multiphasic leadership scale for elementary school principals after 80 inservice teachers were selected. As a result, the overall correlation coefficients of the two scale ranged from .25 to .68, which indicated the correlation between the two. When the correlations of every level between the two scales were analyzed, the correlation coefficients for every level ranged from .28 to .54 except the collective level that included many items which reflected the organizational characteristics of early childhood education institutions. It signified that the levels of the two scales were correlated. The Cronbach alpha coefficient of the scale that indicated internal consistency was .98. When the split-half reliability of it was tested, that was .93 by the successive halves method and .95 by the odd-even method. The test-retest reliability of it was .96. Therefore the scale developed in this study could be said to be highly reliable. The multiphasic leadership scale for principals of early childhood education institutions is of significance in that it reflected the organizational characteristics of the educational institutions, and that it makes it possible to evaluate the leadership of principals in a manner to be appropriate for educational environments for infancy and early childhood. Besides, the scale is expected to make it possible to properly respond to ever-changing educational policies and social needs by assessing the multiphasic leadership competency of principals of early childhood education institutions, and that also is expected to be utilized as a practical tool to make a contribution to the development of early childhood education institutions.
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