The Relationship between Teachers’ Leadership Styles and Teaching Quality in Lower Secondary Schools in Liang Zhou District of Wuwei, Gansu, China

Abstract

The main aim of this research was to study the relationship between teachers’ leadership styles and teaching quality in Liang Zhou District of Wuwei, Gansu, China. A quantitative research method was employed with instruments of questionnaires: multifactor leadership questionnaire and teaching quality questionnaire. The qualities of questionnaires were measured by validity and reliability. The pilot study confirmed the reliability of two questionnaires by Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficients of 0.765 and 0.851 respectively. A multistage sampling was used to select 16 lower secondary schools and to select 352 lower secondary school teachers. The data were analyzed by SPSS, mean, standard deviation were used to analyze the lower secondary school teachers’ perception on leadership styles and teaching quality, simple regression was used to analyze the relationship between the lower secondary school teachers’ leadership styles and teaching quality. The results indicated a strong relationship between transformational leadership style and teaching quality. Furthermore, the relationship between transactional leadership style and teaching quality was found at the moderate level, positively and significantly. Lastly, the relationship between lassize-faire leadership style and teaching quality was statistically significant, but negatively.