School Performance and Leadership Styles Nexus: Exploring the Mediation Effect of Teacher Job Satisfaction in the Public Senior High Schools in Ghana

Abstract

The increasing complexities of school settings and global educational reforms, school leadership has been recognized to play a key role in school performance worldwide. Nonetheless, the mechanisms through school leaders contribute to school performance has not been fully established till date especially due to difference in context of study, regional and cultural convolutions. To address this research lacuna, the study investigated the extent to which leadership styles directly and indirectly contribute teacher job satisfaction and school performance among selected Public Senior High Schools in the Kumasi Metropolis in Ghana. A sample size of 500 respondents were randomly selected and the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach with Smart PLS software version 3.0 were employed for the analysis the data from the study. The study revealed that instructional, transactional, and the transformational leadership styles are the predominant leadership styles employed by the heads of the Public Senior High Schools in the study area. The instructional, transactional, and the transformational leadership styles have statistically significant and positive direct impacts on teachers’ job satisfaction and school performance. Furthermore, teachers’ job satisfaction only played statistically significant partial mediation effects in the relationship between transactional and transformation leadership styles and school performance. The study recommend that leadership in the senior high schools should put premium emphasis on the kind or leadership styles employed and teacher job satisfaction in their effort to improve school performance.

Keywords: Leadership styles, school performance, job satisfaction, Ghana

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-15-12

Publication date:May 31^st 2020