Asia Pacific Journal of Education

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An integrated model of principal transformational

leadership and teacher leadership that is related
to teacher self-efficacy and student academic
performance

Ling Li & Yan Liu

To cite this article: Ling Li & Yan Liu (2020): An integrated model of principal transformational
leadership and teacher leadership that is related to teacher self-efficacy and student academic
performance, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, DOI: 10.1080/02188791.2020.1806036

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2020.1806036

Published online: 18 Aug 2020.

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ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF EDUCATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2020.1806036

An integrated model of principal transformational leadership and

teacher leadership that is related to teacher self-efficacy and
student academic performance
Ling Lia and Yan Liub
a
Center for Education Policy, Southwest University, Chongqing, China; bThe Department of Educational Leadership,
Policy, and Instructional Technology, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Using an integrated school leadership framework, this research intended Received 16 May 2019
to investigate 1.whether and to what extent transformational leadership Accepted 28 July 2020
could leverage teacher leadership; 2 the integrated effects of principal KEYWORDS
transformational leadership and teacher leadership on teacher self- Transformational leadership;
efficacy and student academic performance. This study used a two-stage teacher leadership; teacher
stratified sampling approach and collected the complex survey data in self-efficacy; student
one Chinese province. Researchers employed a rigorous three-level performance
Structural Equation Model to investigate multi-dimensional relationships
among the aforementioned variables. The results suggest that principal
transformational leadership is significantly and positively related to tea­
cher leadership. Meanwhile, principal transformational leadership and
teacher leadership are both positively related to teacher self-efficacy,
but only teacher leadership is positively related to student learning. This
study adds nuanced and international evidence and provides a practical
framework to improve schools by involving teacher leaders through
principal transformational leadership.

Introduction
Among all leadership models, transformational leadership (TL) has attracted persistent interests in
educational research (Anderson, 2017). The concept emphasizes how the principal innovates schools
through building a productive school culture and empowering the staff (Bass & Avolio, 1993;
Leithwood & Jantzi, 2006; Wang, Oh, Courtright, & Colbert, 2011). The available evidence supports
principal transformational leadership helps create favourable school conditions (Hallinger, 2003),
and improve school outcomes (Day, Gu, & Sammons, 2016; Koh, Steers, & Terborg, 1995; Leithwood &
Jantzi, 1990, 2000, 2006; Marks & Printy, 2003).
Meanwhile, the evolvement of transformational leadership theory in educational research high­
lights two features. One is the shared essence in which transformational leaders inspire and motivate
each staff member so that all teachers are enthused to achieve the common goal (Day et al., 2016;
Leithwood & Jantzi, 2000, 2006; Marks & Printy, 2003); the other is the emphasis on collective
capacity development across a broad spectrum of stakeholders (Allen, Grigsby, & Peters, 2015;
Demir, 2008; Hallinger, 2003; Leithwood & Jantzi, 1990). The shared nature and collective capacity
development emphasized by transformational leadership would persuasively levy teacher leader­
ship because transformational leaders motivate and develop more capable teachers (Demir, 2008;

CONTACT Yan Liu yanliu@ccsu.edu Department of Educational Leadership, Policy and Instructional Technology, School
of Education and Professional Studies, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT
© 2020 National Institute of Education, Singapore
2 L. LI AND Y. LIU

Gkolia, Koustelios, & Belias, 2018). However, though principal transformational leadership has been
investigated for the relative effects compared with principal instructional leadership (Day et al., 2016;
Shatzer, Caldarella, Hallam, & Brown, 2014), and the integrated effects with shared instructional
leadership as a composite by both principals and teachers (Marks & Printy, 2003), such integration
between principal transformational leadership and teacher leadership is surprisingly limited in the
literature. In addition, as researchers (Yu, Leithwood, & Jantzi, 2002) contend, there is insufficient
empirical evidence for transformational leadership in non-Western contexts. This study project was
conducted in China, which adds international and nuanced evidence regarding to what extent
transformational leadership could levy teacher leadership, and how both leadership sources are
related to teacher self-efficacy and student performance in the Chinese context.

Literature review
Transformational leadership
The inception of transformational leadership was dated back to 1970s when James Burns (1978)
delineated two fundamental leadership styles. As opposite to transactional leadership, Burns argued:
“the transforming leader looks for potential motives in followers, seeks to satisfy higher needs, and
engages the full person of the follower” (1978, p. 4). The model (Bass, 1999; Bass & Avolio, 1993)
highlighted four dimensions, including idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual
stimulation, and individualized consideration.
Bass’ framework was re-examined by Leithwood and Jantzi (1990, 2000, 2006) for educational
research. The new model included seven dimensions for transformational leaders in the educational
setting: identifying a vision and fostering the common goal; setting high-performance expectations;
providing individualized support; offering intellectual stimulation; modelling best practices; creating
a productive school culture; and designing the structures to foster collaboration and participation. In
an educational context, establishing and communicating the school vision is a fundamental role for
the principal (Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2010; Day, 2011). Transformational
leaders inspire all teachers through empowering and providing support while setting high-
performance expectations for the entire staff (Day, 2011; Day et al., 2016; Katzenmeyer & Moller,
2009). Such components are essential for a successful school that highlights continuous develop­
ment with the support in place. A transformational leader also exerts idealized influence, so the
principal is someone teachers emulate, admire and trust (Bryk et al., 2010; Day, 2011; Louis & Murphy,
2017). The last two elements highlight changing the school culture and designing the structure for
best practices (Allen, et al., 2015; Demir, 2008; Leithwood & Jantzi, 1990). In order to establish
a transformational culture, it is necessary for the principal to recognize the individual needs, back­
grounds, knowledge, and abilities, in order to develop staff and levy the full individual and organiza­
tional potential (Allen, et al., 2015; M. Anderson, 2017; Bass & Avolio, 1993; Koh et al., 1995;
Leithwood & Jantzi, 1990). The evidence generally supports transformational leadership is positively
related to teacher commitment (Koh et al., 1995; Yu et al., 2002), satisfaction (Griffith, 2004), teacher
efficacy (Demir, 2008; Hipp, 1997), as well as student engagement and outcomes (Leithwood &
Jantzi, 2000).
The transformational leadership research in China was primarily conducted in the business field
with researchers’ interest in the composition of transformational leadership in the Chinese context
(Li & Shi, 2008), the effect of TL on employee attitudes and behaviours (Graves, Sarkis, & Zhu, 2013),
and the organizational productivity (Shao, Feng, & Liu, 2012). These studies exclusively adopted
Bass’s four-element framework and found the conceptual framework developed in the Western
context worked flawlessly to a great extent in the Chinese context, though Li and Shi (2008)
identified moral modelling as a unique dimension in China for transformational leaders. While for
educational research, there is limited evidence for transformational leadership in China. A recent
review by Walker, Qian, and Hallinger and Allan Walker (2015) found 39 articles and 17 book chapters
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 3

for Chinese principal leadership from 1998 to 2013. After reviewing these available studies, none of
them was related to transformational leadership. An additional search identified one study (Yu et al.,
2002) in Hongkong that used Leithwood’s model and found transformational leadership is positively
related to teachers’ commitment to change. Such rarity for transformational leadership in Chinese
educational research calls for the evidence because researchers believe leadership is capricious
within varied contexts, so it is essential to gather diverse evidence in various settings to fully
understand the concept and implication (Walker et al., 2015)

Teacher leadership
Researchers have developed more interests in collaborative leadership models (Hallinger & Heck,
2010), as one of which, teacher leadership primarily concerns about teacher leaders who lead with or
without positions in assisting principles (Wenner & Campbell, 2017; York-Barr & Duke, 2004). York-
Barr and Duke (2004) defined teacher leadership as “the process by which teachers, individually or
collectively, influence their colleagues, principals, and other members of school communities to
improve teaching and learning practices with the aim of increased student learning and achieve­
ment” (p. 287–288). During the last two decades, researchers have been interested in not only
whether and to what extent teacher leaders are engaged in school leadership and management, but
what specifically they lead for and how through a more practical lens? First of all, it is important to
pinpoint that though teachers likely play essential school leadership roles, they are coordinated and
lead by the principal to be more effective (Bryk et al., 2010; Diamond & Spillane, 2016; Weber, 1996),
so the principal is the leader of leaders (Leithwood et al., 2007). In addition, researchers found
teacher leaders likely lead in developing curriculum and assessment, professional development,
coaching, designing organizational structure, and monitoring instruction (Hunzicker, 2018; York-Barr
& Duke, 2004), while teacher leaders are less directly engaged in developing the school vision,
establishing student disciplinary policies, and planning for school improvement, etc. (Ingersoll,
Sirinides, & Dougherty, 2018; Leithwood et al., 2007; Wenner & Campbell, 2017). Therefore, teacher
leadership, in lights of the leadership functions, is relatively narrow in scope.
The evidence in China for school leadership still centres around school principals (Walker et al.,
2015), though the research has reported that teachers are proactive in collaborative professional
development, and providing feedback to each other in Chinese schools (Qian, Walker, & Li, 2017;
Zheng, Yin, & Li, 2019).

Integrated leadership models

Reviewing literature has confirmed that the research for principal leadership and teacher leadership
has been separated without enough interactions (Neumerski, 2013; Sebastian, Huang, & Allensworth,
2017). The empirical evidence on how principal transformational leadership might motivate teacher
leaders, and how both principal transformational leadership and teacher leadership work interac­
tively to improve teaching and learning is very limited both in Western and Chinese contexts. The
further advancements in educational leadership research in this sense have been stalled by isolating
leadership theories. Researchers argue it is imperative to study leadership through a holistic
approach examining comprehensive components from varied models (M. H. Anderson & Sun,
2017; Sebastian et al., 2017). Moving in this direction, however, a majority of available research has
exclusively devoted to exploring principal leadership as the agent to promote school success. Some
efforts include comparing the relative effects of principal transformational and instructional leader­
ship models on school outcomes (Day et al., 2016; Shatzer et al., 2014). Until recently, scholars made
few attempts to integrate varied leadership models, and the integrated leadership model incorpor­
ating different leadership sources from both principals and teachers has emerged (Hallinger & Heck,
2010; Marks & Printy, 2003; Printy, Marks, & Bowers, 2009; Sebastian et al., 2017), though the
integration operationalization varies. For instance, in one work by Marks and Printy (2003),
4 L. LI AND Y. LIU

transformational leadership and shared instructional leadership integration were measured through
a positionality on a quadrant demonstrating either high or low of each leadership model. Shared
instructional leadership was a composite combining the effort by both the principal and teachers
coded by researchers, without separating their roles and effects. Such an operationalization combin­
ing two leadership sources as one school leadership quota was also used by Hallinger and Heck
(2010) for collaborative leadership. The work of Sebastian et al. (2017), however, quantified principal
instructional leadership and teacher leadership through a separate yet linked system, which helps
reveal the relative effect of principal instructional leadership and teacher leadership on organiza­
tional process and student outcomes.
Leithwood’s model articulates that transformational leaders do not command or even coordinate
others, they are devoted to identifying common goals, inspiring teachers, providing support, and
stimulating development, so all members work to achieve school success collectively. Available
research has confirmed that schools likely achieve success when the principal focuses on creating
common goals, improving collective capacity, and developing the structure for collaboration
through transformational leadership (Allen, et al., 2015; Day et al., 2016; Demir, 2008; Graves et al.,
2013; Griffith, 2004; Koh et al., 1995; Leithwood & Jantzi, 2000, 2006; Marks & Printy, 2003; Printy et al.,
2009). The shared nature and collective capacity building embedded in transformational leadership
would persuasively promote a cooperative climate for teachers to embark on school leadership and
management as well, with both enthusiasm and capacity in place. However, there is no evidence
examining the leadership integration of principal transformational leadership and teacher leader­
ship, either as a composition or through a sperate yet linked system similar as the study by Sebastian
et al. (2017).

The effects of school leadership on student learning outcomes

Over the past decades, researchers all over the world have strived to understand how leadership
contributes to student learning (Leithwood & Seashore-Louis, 2012). Both direct and indirect-effect
models were examined. Since there were only small positive effects found directly between school
leadership and student outcomes, researchers argue it is logically persuasive to adopt indirect-effect
models in order to understand what school leadership could manoeuvre in the school, in order to
ultimately impact student learning (Witziers, Bosker, & Krüger, 2003). Many scholarly efforts have
been dedicated to school process, culture, teaching, etc., in order to bridge school leadership and
student learning outcomes (Leithwood & Seashore-Louis, 2012).
Hallinger and Heck (2010), using longitudinal data, investigated the effect of collaborative leader­
ship on student learning with direct, mediated and reciprocal models. A direct-effects model had
collaborative leadership as the primary driver for the change in student learning; A mediated-effects
model had the school’s capacity as the mediator between collaborative leadership and student
learning outcomes; A reciprocal-effects model is a comprehensive model in which leadership and
school improvement capacity are conceptualized as a mutual influence process that contributes to
growth in student learning. They found collaborative leadership was positively related to change in
school capacity, which is then positively related to student learnings. However, the direct model did
not reveal a significant relationship, which further confirms the importance to adopt the mediated or
reciprocal models in examining the effects of leadership on school outcomes.

School leadership, teacher self-efficacy, and student achievement

Teacher self-efficacy is one of the extensively studied variables for its documented effects on
teachers’ instructional quality, organizational behaviours, and student learning outcomes (Caprara,
Barbaranelli, Steca, & Malone, 2006; Guo, Connor, Yang, Roehrig, & Morrison, 2012; Klassen & Chiu,
2010; Klassen & Tze, 2014). Teachers’ self-efficacy was a notion rooted from the Social Cognitive
theory by Bandura (1977) who defined self-efficacy as beliefs people hold for what they could do. In
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 5

the educational research, Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001) defined teacher efficacy as teachers’
“judgment of his or her capabilities to bring about desired outcomes of student engagement and
learning, even among those students who may be difficult or unmotivated” (p. 783). There were
divergent approaches to measure teacher self-efficacy. After a meta-review and instrumental valida­
tion, Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001) developed aTeachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES), which
manifested teacher self-efficacy in three dimensions for student engagement, classroom manage­
ment, and instructional strategies. The three-dimensional construct has been validated and com­
monly used in educational research (Ryan, Kuusinen, & Bedoya-Skoog, 2015).
The available evidence supports a positive association between teacher self-efficacy and students’
academic achievement both in Western (Caprara et al., 2006; Guo et al., 2012) and Chinese schools
(D. W. Chan, 2008; Cheung, 2008). On the other hand, researchers are interested in the antecedents
for teacher self-efficacy, and found transformational leadership is positively associated with both
teacher collective-efficacy (Ross & Gray, 2006) and self-efficacy (Gkolia et al., 2018; Hipp, 1997; Nir &
Hameiri, 2014). However, though research has investigated into the associations between transfor­
mational leadership and teacher efficacy, as well as teacher efficacy and student performance in
separated studies, the connection has been rarely stretched to include all the aforementioned
variables in one model, especially through the lens of teacher leaders for their roles in helping
teachers develop in their beliefs and increasing student learning outcomes.

Contextual factors unique to the Chinese context

Some unique contextual variables used in this study are worthy of discussion, which includes Hukou
for students, Bianzhi for teachers, and left-home kids. Hokou is a national system for household
registration in China, which officially identifies a person as a resident of an area (K. W. Chan, 2013).
Such a unique system has a profound impact on which school students could attend based on their
Hukou status. Therefore, Hukou has been found to be closely related to people’s social identity and
inequity (Afridi, Li, & Ren, 2015). Bianzhi is also a special system in China, which defines whether
teachers are on the government tenure-track (Brødsgaard, 2002). The term “left-home children” in
the Chinese context is evolved as the result of workers migrating from rural to urban locations. The
migrant workers, who work temporally in the city but don’t carry the municipal Hukou, have no
choice but to leave their kids in their hometown for schooling (Zhou, Sun, Liu, & Zhou, 2005). These
variables have been critical in the Chinese context to differentiate subgroups for student and school
social capital. It has been broadly acknowledged that students’ socioeconomic background is closely
related to their achievement since the Coleman report (1966), and teacher sorting is associated with
schools’ socioeconomic status (Lankford, Loeb, & Wyckoff, 2002). We understand these contextual
factors would potentially influence teacher sorting and student performance in China, so it is
important to include them as contextual controls.

Conceptual framework
In a conventional school leadership model, the school principal plays essential roles in managing
the school. A collaborative leadership model validated by the empirical evidence (Day, 2011; Day
et al., 2016; Hallinger & Heck, 2010; Marks & Printy, 2003) highlights that school principals would
adopt “the layering of fit-for-purpose combinations and accumulations of within-phase leadership
strategies and actions” (Day et al., 2016, p. 225) by including appropriate stakeholders in decision
making and management based on the principal’s evaluation of school needs. Such concept has
significantly advanced the school leadership research through a shift from focusing on one
particular leadership model and effect, to the integrated model combining with the need assess­
ment (Mintrop, 2016) and contextual evaluations (Bryk, Gomez, Grunow, & LeMahieu, 2015).
However, such a full-range leadership concept needs to move beyond the power centre and
6 L. LI AND Y. LIU

investigate through a holistic perspective including teacher leaders in the school leadership and
management (M. H. Anderson & Sun, 2017).
Although research on school leadership effectiveness is not ground-breaking, the research
evidence for the integrated model of principal transformational leadership and teacher leadership,
as well as their total effects on teaching and learning are minimal, especially when adopting
a framework emphasizing teacher leaders’ practical leadership roles. In this sense, the integration
of two leadership models is different from the previous studies including shared instructional
leadership (Marks & Printy, 2003) and collaborative leadership (Hallinger & Heck, 2010), which
investigated two leadership sources as aggregated composite rather than separated yet related
leadership sources from both the principal and teachers, respectively. When school leaders are
strived to transforming schools through inspiring and motivating all teachers, and providing indivi­
dualized support and guidance for the staff to develop professionally, teachers should be equipped
intellectually and psychologically to lead (Elmore, 2000), such evidence is unfortunately missed from
literature. Teachers would be proactive in leading cooperatively, collectively, or co-ordinately
(Spillane, Camburn, & Pareja, 2007) with position holders to develop organization and manage
instruction (Leithwood et al., 2007), and more importantly, to develop the staff through mentoring,
coaching, and building a professional learning community (Hunzicker, 2018). Therefore, it is impor­
tant to interrogate such connections between principal transformational leadership, teaching, and
learning through teacher leadership, with a better understanding of multidimensional relationships.
Figure 1 graphically illustrates the conceptual framework for this study; we posit that schools, in
which principals emphasize individual motivation, inspiration, and development through
a transformational leadership model, are ones most likely levy teacher leadership, both of which
would increase teacher self-efficacy, and ultimately improve student learning outcomes. Note that
based on the literature, both direct and indirect effects linking school leadership and student
outcomes are added to investigate the total effects. In the model, principal transformational

Figure 1. Conceptual framework.

 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 7

leadership is at the school level, while teacher leadership is operationalized as a within school
variable because teacher leadership could be derived from multiple teachers within one school.
This study has these particular research questions:

(1) What is the association between principal transformational leadership and teacher
leadership?
(2) What is the association between principal transformational leadership and student learning?
(3) What are the associations among transformational leadership, teacher leadership and teacher
self-efficacy?
(4) What is the association between teacher leadership and student learning?
(5) What is the association between teacher self-efficacy and student learning?

Method
This paper is a part of the School Leadership and School Improvement Study conducted in China, in
order to understand whether and how the dominant school leadership models that have been
conceptualized in Western contexts might be applicable in Chinese schools. The study used the first-
year data collected in 2016–2017 through surveys in one South-Central Chinese province. The study
was supported by the Provincial Education Department to ensure that all the municipalities and
counties within the province participated in the study. The following section describes the instru­
ments, sampling approach, data collection steps, and analytical approaches employed in this
research.

Instruments and variables

This study adapted the Principal Leadership Questionnaire (PLQ) designed by Jantzi and Leithwood
(1996), and the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) by Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001) to
measure principal transformational leadership and teacher self-efficacy, respectively. As described
in the literature, both instruments have been extensively used, so the reliability and validity have
been examined through many years’ research in Western contexts. However, since researchers
added or modified some items to fit the instruments better to the Chinese context, we validated
the instrument both during the designing phase and the analysis, which will be detailed in the
following sections.
First of all, both PLQ and TSES instruments were developed in English; researchers used the back-
translation method (Brislin, 1970), in which the items were first translated to Chinese by capable
scholars. Next, we held the focus-group discussion by inviting educational leaders and teachers to
clarify items of the Chinese-version instruments. The verified Chinese versions were then translated
back to English by another bilingual scholar who was not exposed to the original instruments. Both
Chinese and English versions were then given to a small group of 30 teachers to collect data in order
to validate the translation of the instrument by comparing the results from both English and Chinese
versions. Another round of minor revisions was conducted after the pilot data collection.
Finally, we included a total of 21 items for transformational leadership, and 25 items for teacher
self-efficacy. All items have five-point Linkert scales as 1, strongly disagree; 2, disagree; 3, neutral; 4,
agree and 5, strongly agree. Please check Appendices 2 and 3 for item details. The items for
transformational leadership asked teachers to rate to what extent they agreed the school principal
demonstrated the specific characteristics or conducted certain behaviours. Teacher self-efficacy scale
asked teachers to report to what extent they held specific beliefs for teaching.
For teacher leadership, the research group created the instrument to measure whether teachers
perceived they were responsible for the primary leadership responsibilities identified. The items
were designed based on literature review, which included setting the direction, hiring, developing
people, designing the organization, and managing the instruction. These leadership functions were
8 L. LI AND Y. LIU

reported to often include teacher leaders (Hunzicker, 2018; Ingersoll et al., 2018; Leithwood et al.,
2007; Wenner & Campbell, 2017; York-Barr & Duke, 2004). There are 25 items included in the survey
(Appendix 4). The questions all have five-point Linkert (from strongly disagree to strongly agree)
scales. The instrument was first testified by a pilot group of 30 teachers, which revealed the internal
reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) was larger than 0.7 for each of the leadership dimensions.
The outcome variable in this study is the students’ standardized test score. The test was designed
based on the Chinese National Educational Quality Monitoring programme , which is a national
evaluation programme focusing on both fundamental content knowledge and skills. The three
separate tests included both multiple choices and open-ended questions to measure student
proficiency in maths, science, and Chinese literacy at the eighth-grade level. The final outcome
used for this study was a composite score as a simple average of the three subjects. The selection of
the eighth grade was rationalized by the National Compulsory Education Student Achievement
Assessment Project, which confirmed students’ cognitive ability is comparatively stable at this
grade, and was also mentioned in a recent study by Liu and Hallinger (2018) investigating principal
instructional leadership and teacher self-efficacy in China.
In addition to the primarily interested variables, we also collected demographic data for schools,
teachers, and students. The demographic variables used in this study are detailed in Appendix 1,
which include student gender, ethnicity, first language, and Hukou status, and teacher gender,
Bianzhi, ethnicity, age, experience.

Sampling approach
To ensure valid representativeness of samples to the population, this research applied a two-stage
stratified sampling design. The first stage was to decide the strata using the geographic locations of
the study province to make sure samples would be drawn from each stratum. Researchers drew the
primary sampling unit (school) using the probability proportional to size approach for each stratum
(counties or cities). The schools selected during the first stage then provided the study team with
a list of classes at the eighth grade. The study management team then randomly drew a proportional
sample of the eighth-grade class as the second sampling unit (class) with all the teachers and
students in the class. The principal and teachers in the same school, and the same class were
provided with the principal and teacher-version surveys respectively to collect the data along with
the students’ standardized test scores. It is necessary to point out that China has teachers of different
subjects collectively teaching one class; therefore, each class might have 10–15 teachers of different
subjects.
After the surveys were returned, we deleted schools that had the response rate of teachers less
than 75% or missed the principal survey. The current paper used the data collected from 116 schools
with 1365 teachers and more than 5000 students. The demographic information of teachers and
students is included in Appendix 1.

The analytical approach

This study used the software of Stata 14 for the statistical analysis. The first step of the analysis was to
assess the psychometric property of the latent variables. The Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and
the internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s alpha) were used for the purpose. We used the
principal component factor analysis with the Varimax rotation for EFA, which does not assume an
existing relationship among the generated factors. Thereafter, the latent variables were constructed
by specifying the data as complex survey data (students nested in the class, classes in the school).
The model fit indices were used to assess the latent-construct models, which should have the
standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) small than 0.08, root mean square error of approx­
imation (RMSEA) smaller than 0.05, Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) and comparative fit index (CFI) larger
than 0.90. These are thresholds broadly accepted by researchers (Hu & Bentler, 1999). Chi-square was
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 9

not used for this study, as it would always reject the model when the sample size is large and the
model is rather complicated (Hu & Bentler, 1998).
Finally, a multi-level Structural Equation Model (SEM) was applied to incorporate structural
models among the variables. The structural model in this study investigates the associations
among transformational leadership and teacher leadership in the school, teacher self-efficacy in
classroom management, instruction, and student engagement, and student academic performance,
controlling for school-level variation of school background (the proportion of left home and low
socioeconomic students), teacher-level teacher background (gender, Bianzhi, experience, ethnicity,
etc.), and student background (gender, first language, ethnicity, Hukou).
The data collected have a nested structure that classes are nested in the school, and students are
nested in the class. The principal transformational leadership is conceptualized as the school level
(third level) variables because the principal leadership practice is identical for each school. Teacher
leadership and teacher self-efficacy are the second-level (within school) variables, and the student
performance is the first-level (within class) variable. A set of controls are used at corresponding levels.
The multi-level model employed for this study would avoid the estimation bias by using the single-
level approach for conceptually nested data, which might result in underestimated standard errors
that lead to increased Type I error (Snijders & Bosker, 1999). The multi-level or hierarchical analysis
appropriately takes into account data dependency within a cluster in order to increase estimation
accuracy. In addition, a multi-level model could incorporate covariates or control variables at
different levels in the model (Garson, 2013). Due to the fact that the primary interest was in the multi-
dimensional relationships among all the variables, and the integrated effects of the two leadership
models on teaching and learning, we reported the total effects rather than detailing the direct and
indirect effects for all the variables, in order to avoid confusions and over-complicated results, which
might also add difficulty to the interpretation.

Findings
This section reports the findings. Researchers first conducted a descriptive analysis in order to test
assumptions before developing a multi-level SEM. The descriptive statistic for variables used in the
multi-level SEM is reported in Appendix 1. The correlational coefficients among variables were also
testified to avoid multicollinearity issues (Lewis-Beck & Lewis-Beck, 2015). None of the correlation
coefficients is larger than 0.8 among independent and control variables, except for teacher age and
experience, so teacher age variable was not included in the final model.
Researchers first conducted EFA in order to explore the psychometric property for principal
transformational leadership, teacher leadership, and teacher self-efficacy. The factor with
Eigenvalue larger than 1, and the items with factor loading larger than 0.5 were retained to construct
the corresponding latent variables. All the variables used for the construct are included in
Appendix 2

Multi-level structural equation model results

The model displayed in Figure 2 illustrates the statistical findings. The model fit indices are.968 for
the comparative fit index (CFI), .956 for the Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), .046 for the root mean square
error of approximation (RMSEA), and .051 for the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR)
within the class, .067 for SRMR between classes, and .064 for SRMR between schools. Above indices
indicated a satisfactory model fit with thumb of the rule that usually needs CFI larger than .95, TLI
larger than .90, RMSEA and SRMR smaller than .08 (Hu & Bentler, 1999).
The results indicate that transformational leadership is significantly related to teacher leadership
(β = .476, p< .001). Both transformational leadership (β = .007, p< .05) and teacher leadership
(β = .115, p< .001) are positively related to teacher self-efficacy, while the effect size between teacher
leadership and teacher self-efficacy is larger than the effect between transformational leadership and
10 L. LI AND Y. LIU

Figure 2. Multi-level structural equation model results. Note: standardized coefficients were reported, * p< 0.05, ** p< 0.01 ***
p< 0.001

teacher self-efficacy. Teacher leadership (β = .223, p< .001) is positively related to student academic
performance, while such a positive relationship is not found between transformational leadership
and student performance. Finally, teacher self-efficacy (β = .024, p< .05) is positively related to
student performance thought the effect size is minimal. While the control variables are not the
primary interest, it is worthy of being reported as some of them are unique in the Chines context. For
the control variables at the individual level, female students (β = .032, p< .05), student’s ethnicity as
Han (β = .222, p< 0.001), and students with registered Hukou (β = .252, p< .001) are more likely to
have better academic performance, while student whose first language is not Mandarin (β = – .053,
p< .01) are likely to perform worse than their peers who speak Mandarin as the first language. The
school proportion of both left-home students (β = −.041, p< .05), and low socio-economic students
(β = −.086, p< .001) are negatively related to student performance.

Discussion
It is logically persuasive that school principals would develop and engage teachers in school decision-
making and management when school principals are enthused to levy the school’s maximum social and
human capital through a transformational leadership model. However, although early evidence supports
principal transformational leadership is related to and would work better with shared instructional
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 11

leadership for student learning (Marks & Printy, 2003), a separated yet related mechanism with principal
transformational leadership and teacher leadership, as well as their integrated effects on teaching and
learning has not been examined adequately in both Western and Chinese contexts. Such an inquiry is
not fully investigated partially due to the fact that the principal leadership and teacher leadership studies
are often segregated in literature traditionally (Neumerski, 2013; Sebastian et al., 2017).
In sum, this research incorporated two leadership models, including transformational leadership
(Bass & Avolio, 1993; Bass & Riggio, 2006; Jantzi & Leithwood, 1996; Leithwood & Jantzi, 2000, 2006)
and teacher leadership (Hunzicker, 2018; Ingersoll et al., 2018; Leithwood et al., 2007; Wenner &
Campbell, 2017), to have developed and testified an integrated school leadership model, and the
total effects on three-dimension teacher self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986; Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001)
and student learning. The new model, unlike previous models that combined principal and teacher
leadership roles to measure shared (Marks & Printy, 2003), or collaborative leadership (Hallinger &
Heck, 2010), highlighted the potential leverage of principal transformational leadership for teacher
leadership first, then their integrated effects on teaching and learning. The study adopted a similar
approach by Sebastian et al. (2017), though their focus was on principal instructional leadership and
teacher leadership. Such a model depicts a more authentic operationalization of school’s transfor­
mational improvement through engaging teacher leaders.
This study has several key findings. First, the study confirms there is a positive association
between transformational leadership and teacher leadership, which indicates when a school princi­
pal initiates to inspire and develop the staff, teachers are likely engaged to lead with the principle,
especially in instruction-related leadership responsibilities as this study revealed. Such evidence is
quite limited in the literature through quantitative inquiries, yet the result resonates with the
previous argument that school’s teacher leadership is largely dependent on school principal leader­
ship (Day et al., 2016; Diamond & Spillane, 2016; Leithwood et al., 2007). An effective learning
community with teachers’ active role in leading professional development and managing instruction
still needs a strong principal leadership to set goals, inspire people, create structure and climate,
promote instructional collaboration and professional development (Antonakis & Day, 2017; Diamond
& Spillane, 2016; Elmore, 2000; Leithwood & Jantzi, 2006). Therefore, the principal leadership
focusing on school and staff excellence is the umbrella under which a positive change could happen
to promote school improvement through teachers’ collaborative work (Bryk et al., 2010). Through
transformational leadership, teachers leaders are motivated and prepared to lead (Printy et al., 2009)
The other important finding is that transformational leadership, though is associated with
teacher self-efficacy, has not been able to exert an effect on students’ performance. First of all,
this finding is consistent with the evidence in educational leadership research that principal
leadership often influences student learning indirectly (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, &
Wahlstrom, 2004). Second, Social Cognitive Theory articulates that teachers could develop self-
efficacy from four sources: mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and
physiological responses (Bandura, 1977, 1986). In schools, principals could help develop
teachers professionally through inspiring, individual support and stimulation (Gkolia et al.,
2018; Hipp, 1997; Koh et al., 1995; Yu et al., 2002). However, transformational leadership pays
concentrated attention to motivate and develop teachers, and build a supportive and caring
culture (Bass & Avolio, 1993; Leithwood & Jantzi, 1990). Therefore, it is persuasive even such
a leadership model might not levy student learning directly, it helps develop teachers, and
teachers would help students learn more directly. Such evidence resonates with what Day et al.
(2016, p. 238) argued “neither instructional leadership strategies nor transformational leader­
ship strategies alone were sufficient to promote improvement.” Their study found “leadership
that focused on developing people to become innovative and more rigorous in teaching” has
a profound effect on student learning, which demonstrates the importance of teacher capacity
and attitudes. This study reveals, through a transformational leadership model that teachers
are likely inspired and ready to lead, and teachers’ charge in developing people, managing
instruction and developing organization is significantly related to both teacher self-efficacy
12 L. LI AND Y. LIU

and student learning outcomes. Thus, even if a school principal adopts a transformational
leadership model, the effect on student outcome might be limited without involving teachers
in leading core instructional functions and developing the organization, such evidence is
relatively new to literature.
Consistent with prior findings (Caprara et al., 2006), this study confirmed teacher self-efficacy is
a significant and positive indicator of students’ academic performance, though the effect size in this
study is quite small. Teacher’s belief about their impact on student learning could be related to the
actual student learning outcome (Guo et al., 2012), which reinforced the importance to promote
continuous teacher professional development in the school.
Finally, this study also had some very interesting findings that are unique to the Chinese context.
For instance, whether students have Hukou (a registered card for local resident) that allows students
to enrol in local public schools is a positive indicator of student performance, which resonates with
the former research that articulates Hukou, as a unique system for residential registration, has been
associated with inequality (Afridi et al., 2015). Students whose parents are migrant workers cannot
get them the legal residential status so they cannot secure a spot at local schools. Hukou is
a symbolic indicator of social status for people because metropolitan Hukous have been associated
with privileged social capital. Such an argument is confirmed by the current study finding, that
students who do not have a Hukou and are left-home kids perform worse than their peers both at
the individual and school levels. In addition, students who are Han ethnicity are doing better than
minority students; this is probably due to the language barriers because minority students who do
not speak Mandarin as their first language also show to perform worse than students who speak
Mandarin as the first language.

Limitation
While this study employed robust instrumental design and validation, rigorous sampling and
analytical approaches, it still carries limitations. First of all, this study collected data from one
South-Central province in China. Caution is needed to not overstate the generalizability of
results even for Chinese schools, because there exist vast cultural, societal and policy differ­
ences that add difficulties to generalize the findings to the entire Chinese population. It is
relatively safe to articulate the finding is generalizable to the study province.
Second, this study collected self-reported data for the primarily interested variables and demo­
graphic data. Though the survey approach has been extensively used in social science, anyone that
uses this approach has to acknowledge the potential bias with self-reported data. For this particular
study, teachers might be too optimistic about their own belief in teaching.
Third, this study emphasized the total integrated effects of principal transformational
leadership and teacher leadership on teacher self-efficacy and student performance; therefore,
we did not report the separated direct and indirect effects through the mediators of teacher
leadership and teacher self-efficacy in the model, due to limited space and the primary interest
of this study in the overarching effects when both principal transformational leadership and
teacher leadership are presented in the school. We acknowledge such effects might be inter­
esting for the future study to specifically examining the direct and indirect effect of transfor­
mational leadership on teacher self-efficacy through teacher leadership, and also the direct
and indirect effects of transformational leadership and teacher leadership on student perfor­
mance through teacher self-efficacy.
Last, though this research has provided nuanced evidence through separating principal and
teacher leadership, for the integrated effects on teaching and learning, there is still much that could
be done for the integrated leadership model with emphases on both principals and teachers. How
a group of leaders leads together to improve schools is an important topic. In addition, this study has
investigated the relationship between transformational leadership and student performance
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 13

through teacher self-efficacy, while there are many other variables that could be emphasized as the
path.

Conclusion
The available evidence supports that school leadership matters for student learning (Leithwood &
Seashore-Louis, 2012). But how school leaders could maximize the influence on school outcomes is
still under investigation. This study presented an integrated leadership model, in which researchers
were interested in the evidence detailing how principal and teachers, both as a team and separately,
could support teaching and learning. Although leaders may employ varying leadership approaches
to improve schools, this study finds that transformational principals create an environment for
teachers to be active in school leadership and management, which further leverages better school
outcomes. Being different from the available research (Hallinger & Heck, 2010; Marks & Printy, 2003;
Sebastian et al., 2017), this study provides more nuanced evidence with the integrated effects of
principal transformational leadership and teacher leadership on teacher self-efficacy and student
learning outcomes through a separated yet related system, which is rarely available. The results
indicate that even principal transformational leadership could help improve teacher self-efficacy as
suggested by the previous research (Gkolia et al., 2018; Hipp, 1997), teacher leadership supports
both teacher and student learning more substantially. The fact that teacher leadership emerges as
a significant mediator suggests that successful principals could rarely lead alone, but that
a fundamental role of the principal is to inspire, motivate and prepare teacher leaders, and provide
the authority for teacher leaders to address issues as a team. The evidence also suggests, from
another hand, teacher leadership would not exist without the principal’s support and inspiration
through a transformational climate. This study provides a practical framework with the evidence on
how an integrated model of principal transformational leadership with the school principal’s empha­
sis on innovating schools and inspiring staff, and teacher leadership with teachers’ intellectual
contribution to a collective administration might jointly improve teaching and learning. The evi­
dence would help reassure principals to adopt transformational leadership, and encourage teacher
leaders to lead for improved school outcomes.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Ling Li is a professor and director of Center for Education Policy at Southwest University in Chongqing, China. Her
research interests include educational policy, school educational reform, and education evaluation. Ling Li has
published books and peer-reviewed articles at various journals; and has been funded by several national institutions
for educational research regarding educational equity, rural and urban educational achievement gap, and educational
evaluation in China.
Yan Liu is an Assistant Professor at Central Connecticut State University in the USA. She utilizes advanced quantitative
approaches to investigate how educational contexts, educational policies, and the expertise possessed by school
personnel interactively outline educational leadership and educational outcomes. Her research has been published at
various journals including Educational Administration Quarterly, Educational Management Administration &
Leadership, School Effectiveness and School Improvement, and International Journal of Educational Research, etc.

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Appendices
Appendix 1.
Descriptive statistics for all variables.

Variable Min Max M SD

Dependent Variable

Student Performance Score 258.19 790.94 500.97

87.77
Independent Variables

Principal Transformational Leadership −2.38 0.95 0.09

1.02
Vision and Goal −2.51 1.03 0.17
1.09
Modelling best practices −2.47 1.33 0.12
1.11
Individual support −2.50 1.21 0.13
1.24
Intellectual Stimulation NTELLECTUAL STIMULATION −2.43 0.94 0.10
1.02
High expectation −2.46 0.98 0.07
1.13
Productive school culture −2.42 0.98 0.09
1.12
Teacher Leadership −1.73 3.43 −0.03
1.70
Managing instruction −1.54 3.91 −0.03
1.97
Developing people −2.08 2.27 −0.03
1.70
Developing organization ORGNIZATION −2.30 4.84 0.00
2.66
Teacher Self-efficacy −2.63 0.67 0.14
0.63
(Continued)
 ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF EDUCATION 17

Variable Min Max M SD

Student Engagement −2.61 0.68 0.15
0.67
Class Manage −2.61 0.72 0.12
0.75
Instruction −2.72 0.73 0.14
0.65
Student Background
Female 0 1 0.47 0.50
0.01
Whether the student is female? (yes 1 vs no 0)
Han Ethnicity 0 1 0.87 0.33
0.01
Whether the student is Han ethnicity? (yes 1 vs no 0)
Mandarin 0 1 0.87 0.34
0.01
Whether the student speaks Mandarin as the first language? (yes 1 vs no 0)
Hukou 0 1 0.90 0.30
0.01
Whether the student has the registered local Hukou (yes 1 vs no 0)
Teacher Background
Female 0 1 0.51 0.50
0.01
Whether the teacher is female? (yes 1 vs no 0)
Bianzhi 0 1 0.85 0.36
0.01
Whether the teacher has the Bianzhi? (yes 1 vs no 0)
Han Ethnicity 0 1 0.88 0.34
0.01
Whether the teacher is Han ethnicity? (yes 1 vs no 0)
Age 22 60 37.68 8.69
0.12
How old is the teacher?
Experience 1 39 15.35 9.63
0.13
How many years of total experience as a teacher?
School Background
Left-home student proportion 1 6 3.47 1.60
0.02
What is the proportion of left-home students in the school?
1. None; 2. 1% to 10%; 3. 11% to 20%; 4. 21% to 30%; 5. 31% to 40% 5. More than 40%
Low SES student proportion 1 6 3.70 1.70
What is the proportion of low socio-economic students in the school?
1. None; 2. 1% to 10%; 3. 11% to 20%; 4. 21% to 30%; 5. 31% to 40% 5. More than 40%

Note: Student performance is the student test score average from three subjects;Transformational leadership, Teacher leadership
and Teacher self-efficacy are latent variables
Appendix 2.
Transformational leadership items and factor loading.Identifying a vision and fostering the common goal
(Cronbach’s Alpha:.78)Excites us with visions of what we may be able to accomplish if we work together0.81Gives
us a sense of overall purpose for the intermediate years0.77Provides for our participation in the process of developing
school goals for the intermediate years0.67Encourages teachers to work towards the same goals for the intermediate
years0.84Modelling best practices (Cronbach’s Alpha:.89)Leads by doing rather than simply by
telling0.86Symbolizes success and accomplishment within our profession0.81Provides good models for us to
follow0.87Provides Individual Support (Cronbach’s Alpha:.84)Provides for extended training to develop my knowl­
edge and skills relevant to my work0.88Provides the necessary resources to support my professional
development0.88Treats me as an individual with unique needs and expertise0.75Takes my opinion into consideration
when initiating actions that affect my work0.77Behaves in a manner thoughtful of my personal needs0.75Provides
Intellectual Stimulation (Cronbach’s Alpha:.90)Challenges me to re-examine some basic assumptions I have about
18 L. LI AND Y. LIU

my work0.82Stimulates me to think about what I am doing for my teaching and students0.87Provides information that
helps me think of ways to implement new practices0.84Holds High-Performance Expectations (Cronbach’s
Alpha:.85)Insists on only the best performance from us0.84Shows us that there are high expectations for us as
professionals0.85Will not settle for second best in performance of our work0.77Creating a productive school culture
(Cronbach’s Alpha:.86)Being able to develop a school improvement plan and get support0.83Being able to learn and
self-improve, and encouraging teachers to develop professionally0.78Commands respect from everyone in the
school0.82
Appendix 3.
Teacher efficacy manifests and factor loading.Teacher Self-EfficacyFactor LoadingStudent Engagement (Cronbach’s
Alpha:.90)I can help student solve the problem for learning0.78I can change students with learning difficulties if I work
hard0.71I know how to engage my students0.77I am able to motivate students and offer help to students0.85I help
students know the meaning for leaning and start enjoying it0.83Classroom Management (Cronbach’s Alpha:.82)I am
capable in managing the classroom0.78I make my classroom norm explicit to my students0.79I know how to correct
student’s behaviours especially for students with problematic behaviours0.71Instruction (Cronbach’s Alpha:.86)I could
align the curriculum with the common core and understand the curriculum in depth0.73I am serious about my teaching
planning0.81I believe I can teach effectively0.68I can judge whether the homework is too difficult if students could not
complete it0.69I will adopt multiple approaches to improve the teaching efficiency0.80
Appendix 4.
Teacher leadership items and factor loading.Teacher LeadershipFactor LoadingTeacher Leadership for Instructional
Management (Cronbach’s Alpha:.79)Decide which teaching materials to use0.71Developing school
curriculum0.75Make decision on curriculum arrangement and teaching schedule0.68Teacher Leadership for
Professional Development (Cronbach’s Alpha:.82)Observing class and participating in teachers’ professional
development0.72Participating in planning teachers’ professional development0.78Planning activities for teacher’s
professional development0.76Teacher Leadership for Organization Development (Cronbach’s Alpha:.87)Deciding
on whether teachers participate in varied out-of-school professional development0.72Participating in developing
school regulations0.78Participating in scheduling and school activity planning0.83Participate in designing the school’s
organizational structure0.82