Exploring the effects of principals’ distributed leadership practices on learners’ learning achievement as mediated by teachers’ commitment

Abstract

The aim of the study reported on here was to explore the effects of principals’ distributed leadership (DL) practices on learners’ learning achievement as mediated by teachers’ commitment. In the study we employed survey data with a sample size of 603 learners from 8 technical and vocational education training schools in Eritrea. The proposed model of this study was tested through multiple regression analyses and structural equation modelling using teachers’ commitment as a mediator. The findings of this study show that distributed leadership practices have a positive and significant effect on teachers’ commitment and an indirect effect on learners’ learning achievement. The results also show that teachers’ commitment has a partial mediation effect. Moreover, the variance test analysis reveals the effect of distributed type of leadership practices by school principal determined by school type, size, location, and ownership.