Situations, Needs, and Guidelines for Developing the 21st Century Leadership Skills of the School Administrators under Mukdahan Secondary Educational Service Area Office

Abstract

The objectives of this research were 1) to study the current and desirable situations, 2) to assess the needs of the 21^st century leadership skills, and 3) to develop guidelines for developing the 21^st century leadership skills of the school administrators. The samples were 274 participants: school administrators and teachers. They were randomized by stratified random sampling. The sample size was determined by Krejcie and Morgan’s Table. The research instruments consisted of four forms: (1) a five-rating scale questionnaire asking for current situations with the Index of Item Congruence (IC) between 0.80-1.00, the discrimination between 0.24-0.76, and the reliability of 0.91, (2) a five-rating scale questionnaire asking for desirable situations with the Index of Item Congruence (IC) between 0.08-1.00, the discrimination between 0.28-0.80, and the reliability of 0.91, (3) a structured-interview form with the Index of Item Congruence (IC) of 1.00 of all items, and (4) a suitability and possibility assessment form with the Index of Item Congruence (IC) of 1.00 of all items. The statistics employed were percentage, mean, standard deviation, and the index Modified Priority Needs Index (PNI_Modified).

 The research findings were as follows.

1.  The overall current situations of the 21^st century leadership skills of the school administrators were at a high level (x̅  =4.15), and the overall desirable situations of the 21^st century leadership skills of the school administrators were at the highest level (x̅  = 4.54).
2.  The needs with the 3 top ranked scores were organizational management skills focusing on achievement, communication skills, and digital technology skills.
3.  The guidelines for developing the 21^st century leadership skills of the school administrators were that: 1) communication skills-the development of knowledge, the creation of the networks, the beginning of the general conversation, the organized issues before communicating should be promoted, and the suitable communication for contexts and situations should be done, 2) digital technology skills the technology training should be arranged for the administrators, the administrators should be promoted to use digital technology, the administrators should practice how to use technology by themselves, the administrators should study the Computer-Related Crime Acts, the administrators should type documents by themselves, and the administrators should study how to use the educational online media, 3) thinking skills--intellectual societies should be promoted, analyzing problems for further classroom researches should be encouraged, the situation problem analysis and the management principles should be used, and working atmosphere in schools should be improved, 4) world literacy skills news and laws should be studied, schools should be built to be the societies of the diversity, the administrators should accept and understand the differences among individuals, visions should be built together in the organizations, and the administrators should have knowledge in various fields, so they could use the knowledge in schools, 5 organizational management focusing on achievement the assessment should be adjusted by emphasizing on the assessment for developing learning, management, and organizing schools’ structures clearly, distributing responsibility based on good governance, regulating directions, plans, and participatory goals, and listening to other people’s opinions.The findings of the assessment showed that the guidelines for developing in the overall were suitable at the highest level (x̅  = 4.61) and possible to be used at the highest level (x̅  = 4.52).