Leadership and School Well-Being: Validation of a Questionnaire to Strengthen a Positive Educational Climate

Abstract

This study addresses the need for an integrated instrument to simultaneously assess school leadership, climate, and well-being key dimensions of educational quality. In the first phase, a rigorous content validation process was conducted through expert judgment, which allowed for refining the items and ensuring their relevance. The initial pool of 48 items was progressively refined through expert judgement and exploratory analysis, resulting in a final 27-item version. Subsequently, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was carried out to identify the instrument’s underlying structure, followed by a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in the third phase to empirically test the proposed model. The quantitative and instrumental research design was applied to a sample of 327 teachers and school leaders, of whom 270 complete responses were analysed. After the factorial validation, a comparative descriptive analysis was conducted to examine differences across the evaluated dimensions according to institution type, professional role, years of experience, and sex. These analyses revealed meaningful variations in the perception of leadership, climate, and well-being, providing a more contextualized understanding of the instrument and its applicability across diverse educational settings.