Social Media Use Among School Administrators:A Mixed-Methods Approach to Scale Development and Validation

This mixed-methods study had two aims: to determine the purpose of school administrators’ use of social media and to develop and validate a scale measuring those purposes. In the qualitative phase, 15 school principals were interviewed individually, and the social media accounts of five principals were analyzed to identify purposes of use. In the second phase, an instrument was developed and validated across two independent samples of school administrators attending separate in-service training programs organized by the Turkish Ministry of National Education (MONE). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA; n = 156), using principal axis factoring with direct oblimin rotation, revealed a three-factor structure: stakeholder communication, personal use, and professional development, accounting for 65.52% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; n = 148) supported the factor structure with satisfactory model fit (χ²/df = 1.60, CFI = .955, RMSEA = .064). Convergent and discriminant validity were established through average variance extracted, composite reliability, McDonald’s omega, and the Fornell–Larcker criterion.