Construct Validity of the Empowerment Model of Middle Managers in Education: Examination of Model Fit with Field Data

Authors
1 Azad University of Islamshahr
2 Research Institute for Education
3 Islamic Azad University, Islamshahr branch
Abstract
The present study was conducted with a quantitative approach to test the construct validity and fit the six-component model of middle managers’ empowerment in education in Iran with field data. The statistical population of this study consisted of middle managers of education in Tehran province (about 510 people), of which more than 70 percent of the statistical population (348 people) participated in this study with available samples and answered the 66-question researcher-made questionnaire. To evaluate the validity of the questionnaire, in addition to the opinions of experts, confirmatory factor analysis was used and Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to evaluate its reliability, which varied from 0.87 to 0.93 for the six components of the questionnaire. To examine the model fit including six factors with field data, confirmatory factor analysis was used using AMOS 23 software package. The factors in the fitted model included human resource agency, self-regulation and self-development, merit-based assignment, organizational belonging, power distribution and delegation, and reform of macro policies (facilitating the extra-organizational environment), all of which had factor loadings above the acceptable threshold. The fit indices of the middle managers’ empowerment model in education showed the desirable fit of the proposed model. This questionnaire can be used to provide a model for the empowerment of middle managers in education in future studies.
Keywords

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