Development of Characteristics, Indicators and Evaluation Form of Christian Leadership for Students in Schools under The Foundation of The Church of Christ in Thailand

Abstract

This study aimed to: 1) develop characteristics, indicators and an evaluation form of Christian leadership for students in schools under the Foundation of the Church of Christ in Thailand; 2) investigate the propriety and applicability of Christian leadership characteristics and indicators for students in schools under the Foundation of the Church of Christ in Thailand; 3) develop and investigate the quality of the Christian leadership evaluation form; 4) investigate the construct validity of the Christian leadership evaluation form and the level of students’ Christian leadership. The sample consisted of 650 students in schools under the Foundation of the Church of Christ in Thailand. The research instruments were focus group issue forms, questionnaires, and evaluation forms of Christian leadership. The acquired data was analyzed with content analysis, percentage, correlation, the mean, standard deviation, and confirmatory factor analysis. The research results indicated that: 1) there were 5 factors which defined a Christian leader: 1.1) vision, which had 3 indicators: good planning, foresight, and a goal to work towards; 1.2) a spirit of leadership, which had 3 indicators: honesty, courage, and an exemplar way of living; 1.3) teamwork skills, which had 3 indicators: ability to coordinate team efforts, open-mindedness, and ability to motivate team members; 1.4) humility and willingness to serve others, which had 3 indicators: contentment to give, determination to help, and understanding of others; 1.5) intelligence, which had 3 indicators: creativity, diversity of knowledge, and hunger for new knowledge; 2) the Christian leadership characteristics and indicators were proprietary and feasible for practice; 3) the Christian leadership evaluation form had content validity and had inter-rater reliability; 4) the Christian leadership evaluation form had construct validity, since the model was consistent with the empirical data, according to the Chi-square value (74.610) which was not statistically significant. This demonstrates that the research model was consistent with the empirical data. The harmony level index was higher than 0.90 (GFI = 0.985). The adjusted harmony level index was higher than 0.90 (AGFI = equal to 0.971). The root index of the mean square of the remainder was less than 0.05 (RMR = 0.001) and the average square root of the difference was approximately less than 0.05 (RMSEA = 0.018), meaning that the model was in harmony with the empirical data. On the whole, Christian leadership qualities of students in schools under the Foundation of the church of Christ in Thailand were at the very high level.