School Heads’ Digital Leadership and Teachers’ Digital Knowledge

Successful technology application in education depends on the digital knowledge of teachers, which could be influenced by the digital leadership of school heads. This research was conducted to investigate the relationship between school heads’ digital leadership and teachers’ digital knowledge in the Maigo District, Lanao del Norte, Philippines. The study employed a descriptive-correlational design, involving 13 school heads and 115 teachers, with complete enumeration used to include the entire population. A self-constructed, validated, and pilot-tested questionnaire on digital leadership and digital knowledge was used to collect data, which were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, Pearson r, and Kruskal-Wallis tests. The results showed that most school heads were 41–50 years old, held a Master’s degree, and had 16 years or more of service, while teachers were mostly 21–30 years old, had Master’s units, and 1–5 years of service. School heads exhibited very high digital leadership (grand mean = 3.31) in the domains of Equity and Citizenship Advocacy, Visionary Planning, and Empowering Leadership. Teachers demonstrated very high digital knowledge (grand mean = 3.28) in areas such as TPACK and digital assessment. Pearson r analysis showed no significant relationship between school heads’ digital leadership and teachers’ digital knowledge (r = -0.283, p = 0.650). The Kruskal-Wallis test revealed that teachers’ educational attainment significantly affected digital knowledge (p = 0.034), while age and length of service did not. These findings suggest that teachers’ digital knowledge is largely influenced by self-directed learning and academic preparation, highlighting the need for teacher-focused professional development to support sustainable integration of technology in schools.