"Measuring School Principals' Support for ICT Integration in Palermo, Italy"

School principals play an important role in managing media and technology integration into school teaching since they can foster the use of information communication technologies (ICT) at a strategic level, even supporting the introduction of media literacy education activities into teaching. Starting from a review on the role of principals’ attitudes and behaviors as facilitators of ICT integration into school teaching using a diffusion of innovation model, the paper investigates the role of principals’ attitudes and additional variables in influencing their support for such integration. The paper reports on data collected from 116 public schools in Palermo (Italy), where the supportive behaviors of 95 principals were investigated through a self-assessment questionnaire in 2006. Findings reveal that principals’ support for ICT integration behaviors depend on both contextual-level and individual-level variables. Contextual variables include the amount of ICT equipment available for teachers in their school, teachers’ competence and frequency of use and teachers’ attitudes towards the ICT usage. Individual-level variables includes principals’ attitudes towards ICT integration into school teaching, their exposure to ICT training courses and their own perceptions of their competence in using ICT.