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.

Exploring Student and Teacher Factors Influencing Students’ Performance in Mathematics

“…Males and females are equal in their approach to science, and inequality in science education and science is caused by educational, political, and social factors external to science. This study underscores the necessity of providing males and females with equitable opportunities and challenges, along with access to high-quality education (Gyimah, 2020). It also reveals that females who lack confidence exhibit impaired causal attribution patterns, view mathematics as a predominantly male domain, and experience heightened levels of anxiety when engaging with the subject (Abrehet al, 2018;Breda & Napp, 2019).…”

“…Numerous factors contribute to the gender inequalities in mathematics and attitude (Armah et al, 2021). In this study, we perceive six primary characteristics that have been shown to influence students' attitudes toward mathematics these include teacher attitudes and beliefs (Owan et al, 2019;Poku, 2021), teaching style and behaviour, teaching techniques (Azila-Gbettor & Abiemo, 2021;Gyimah, 2020) achievement (Abreh et al, 2018;Nsalamba & Alex, 2019), parent attitudes and beliefs (Nsalamba & Alex, 2019;Owan et al, 2019), and students classroom experiences (Breda & Napp, 2019;Nsalamba & Alex, 2019;Spaull & Makaluza, 2019), as having a significant impact, influencing the extent to which females believe they are not as capable in math as males. Findings from studies exploring classroom environments have shown that teachers' behaviours play a crucial role in shaping students' attitudes towards mathematics (Ghasemi & Burley, 2019).…”