Linear and nonlinear relationships between instructional leadership and teacher professional learning through teacher self-efficacy as a mediator: a partial least squares analysis

Although the investigation of instructional leadership and teacher professional learning is well-documented in the literature, one overlooked question concerns the linear and nonlinear relationships between these two variables. This study aims to examine the linear and nonlinear relationships of principal instructional leadership on teacher professional learning through teacher self-efficacy as a mediator. This study has collected 335 teacher samples encompassing both primary and secondary school levels in Penang, Malaysia. The analysis of data utilised partial least-squares structural equation modelling. The findings indicated a significant positive linear relationship between instructional leadership and teacher-professional learning. Likewise, there exists a significant mediating effect of teacher self-efficacy between instructional leadership on teacher professional learning. There exists a significant nonlinear relationship between principal instructional leadership on teacher self-efficacy and teacher professional learning respectively. The structural model exhibits a significantly high level of predictive power for in-sample and out-of-sample. This study offers theoretical and methodological advancements in comprehending the complex relationships between instructional leadership and teacher outcomes. It proposes that forthcoming studies could adopt a combination of linear and non-linear relationships to achieve robust empirical findings.