Congratulations to Laura F. Cahill, who on Friday, August 28, 2026, successfully defended her dissertation.
The title of Laura's dissertation is, "EVALUATING TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP COMPETENCY AMONG ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPALS: A QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF ICT PREPAREDNESS AND TRAINING IN NEW YORK SCHOOLS."
The abstract of this study follows:
Overview of Problem: Information and communication technologies (ICT) have been instrumental in increasing academic standards. Many countries use ICT as one tool that might help with increasing the effectiveness and caliber of the educational process. Educators’ technology competence and self-efficacy are crucial for employing technology to improve teaching and learning. The administration of school culture, particularly the shift to information technology, is a crucial responsibility of educational leadership.
Research Purpose: Using a conceptual framework grounded in the construct of technology leadership competency—which encompasses a principal’s capacity to lead strategic technology integration, support instructional transformation, and foster a schoolwide culture of innovation—and the theoretical framework of technological pedagogical content knowledge learning theory, this quantitative study examined how specific demographic factors, namely age group, gender identity, and years of leadership experience, influence the technology leadership skills of elementary school principals in New York state.
Research Design: A quantitative descriptive research design was used for the investigation.
Sample: Sixty-nine New York state public school elementary principals were retained for PTLA-based analyses, and 59 respondents with complete analytic demographic data were included in the demographic comparison and inferential analyses.
Data Collection and Analysis: Data were collected through a SurveyMonkey questionnaire containing demographic questions and the 35-item Principals Technology Leadership Assessment (PTLA). Following response screening and the study’s missing-data criteria, descriptive statistics addressed RQ1, mean comparisons across gender, age, and leadership experience addressed RQ2, and one-way analyses of variance with multivariate omnibus checks addressed RQ3 and its subquestions.
Findings/Results: The findings underscore the need to prepare principals to lead technology integration as part of school improvement. Effective technology leadership requires connecting technological knowledge with pedagogy, content, policy, and organizational leadership. While elementary principals demonstrate meaningful technology-related strengths, continued preparation and support are needed to translate these strengths into sustained, schoolwide technology leadership.
Conclusions/Implications: The findings suggest that principal preparation and district professional development should strengthen strategic technology leadership through ongoing coaching, technology planning, assessment, policy, resource management, and stakeholder engagement. While principals demonstrated strengths in productivity and communication, greater support is needed to connect technology use to instructional goals, school improvement, and responsible implementation. These opportunities should be broadly available and tailored to school context rather than demographic characteristics.
Dissertation Committee Chair:
Dr. Yiping Wan
Dissertation Committee Members:
Dr. Nora Broege
Dr. Martin M. Fitzgerald
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