The Relationship Between Teacher Transformational Leadership and Students’ Motivation to Learn in Higher Education

Jingkun ZHAO, Haiming HOU, Jianjun YIN

Abstract


This quantitative study sought to examine whether there existed relationships between teacher transformational leadership and students’ motivation to learn. In aggregate, 171 undergraduates recruited from a public Chinese university participated in the study through a random sampling. The participants were administered two instruments: the Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) 5X-short to measure students’ perceptions of the teacher transformational leadership in the educational context and the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaires (MSLQ) to measure students’ motivation to learn. The data collected were analyzed by Pearson’s correlation and multiple regressions using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The results from the multiple regression analyses further verified the findings in the previous literature that teacher transformational leadership could contribute to the students’ increased motivation to learn. It is recommended in the study that professional development be the best practice to facilitate the problems and all the college teachers should attend the professional development about transformational leadership behaviors, and implement the newly-acquired knowledge and skills to elevate students’ motivation to learn.


Keywords


Transformational leadership; Higher education; Students’ motivation to learn

Full Text:

PDF

References


Antonakis, J. (2012) Transformational and charismatic leadership. In D. V. Day & J. Antonakis (Eds.), The nature of leadership (2nd ed., pp. 256-288). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

Avolio, B. J., & Bass, B. M. (2004). Multifactor leadership questionnaire: Third edition manual and sampler set. Redwood City, CA: Mind Garden.

Baba, V. V., & Ace, M. E. (1989). Serendipity in leadership: Initiating structure and consideration in the classroom. Human Relations, 42(6), 509-525.

Bain, K. (2004). What the best college teachers do (p,33). Boston, MA: Harvard University.

Barbuto, J. E. (2005). Motivation and transactional, charismatic, and transformational leadership: A test of antecedents. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 11(4), 26-40. Retrieved January 30, 2007, from EBSCOhost database.

Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. (1993). Transformational leadership: A response to critiques. In M. M. Chemers & R. Ayman (Eds.), Leadership theory and research: Perspectives and directions (pp. 49-80). New York: Free Press.

Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1994). Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership. Sage Publications, Inc.

Bass, B. M., & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational leadership (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Bass, B. M., & Steidlmeier, P. (1999). Ethics, character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior. The Leadership Quarterly, 10(2), 181–217. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/S1048-9843 (99)00016-8.

Blank, W. (1997). Authentic instruction. In W. E. Blank & S. Harwell (Eds.), Promising practices for connecting high school to the real world (pp. 15-21). Tampa, FL: University of South Florida. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 407 586)

Bolkan, S., & Goodboy, A. K. (2009). Transformational leadership in the classroom: Fostering student learning, student participation,and teacher credibility. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 36, 296-306.

Bolkan, S., & Goodboy, A. K. (2010). Transformational leadership in the classroom: The development and validation of the Student Intellectual Stimulation Scale. Communication Reports, 23, 91-105. doi: 10.1080/08934215.2010.511399.

Bolkan, S., Goodboy, A. K., & Griffin, D. J. (2011). Teacher leadership and intellectual stimulation: Improving students’ approaches to studying through intrinsic motivation. Communication Research Reports, 28(4), 337-346. doi. 10.1080/08824096.2011.615958.

Brophy, J. (1987). Synthesis of research on strategies for motivating students to learn.Educational Leadership, 45(2), 40-48. Retrieved February 2, 2007, from EBSCOhost database.

Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.

Chowdhry, S., & Osowska, R. (2017). In search of intellectual stimulation: understanding the relationship between motivation, deep learning and simulation in the HE classroom. Journal of Today’s Ideas – Tomorrow’s Technologies, 5(1), Doi: 10.15415/jotitt.

Christophel, D.M. (1990). The relationship among teacher immediacy behaviors,student motivation and learning. Communication Education, 39, 323-340.

Cone, J. D., & Foster, S. L. (2001). Dissertations and theses from start to finish.Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 627-668.

Dev, P. C. (1997). Intrinsic motivation and academic achievement: What does their relationship imply for the classroom teacher? Remedial and Special Education, 18(1), 12–19. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/074193259701800104.

Duff, A. (2004). The Revised Approaches to Studying Inventory (RASI) and its use in management education. Active Learning in Higher Education, 5, 56-72.

Eggen, P., D., & Kauchak, D. (1994). Educational psychology: classroom connections. The United States: Macmillan.

Eng, J., (2003), Sample size estimation: how many individuals should be studied? Radiology, 227, 309-13.

Fincher, M. (2010). Adult student retention: A practical approach to retention improvement through learning enhancement. Journal of Continuing Higher Education, 58(1), 12-18. Retrieved from doi: 10.1080/07377360903552154.

Harvey, S., Stout, D., & Royal, M. (2004). teacher’s transformational leadership: University student attitudes and ratings. Psychological Reports, 92(2), 395-402.

Hinsey, D. M. (2005). Positive and negative reinforcements: How they affect the academic performance of middle school students. Dissertation Abstracts International, 66(06), 2101. (UMI No. 3178458).

Jaasma, M.A. & Koper, R.J. (1999). The relationship of student-faculty out-of-class communication to teacher immediacy and trust and to student motivation.Communication Education, 48, 41-47.

Kim, M., Hushman, G., So, H., & Holzberg, L. (2017). The effect of transformational leadership on middle school students’ intrinsic motivation and expectancy-value in physical education. European Journal of Educational Sciences, 4(2), 22-31.

Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by rewards: The trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A’s, praise, and other bribes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (1973). Undermining children’s intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the overjustification effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28, 129-137.

Lumsden, L. S. (1994). Student motivation to learn. ERIC Digest, 92, 1-7. Retrieved March 29, 2006, from http://eric.uoregon.edu/publications/digests/digest092.html

Mattick, K., Dennis, I., & Bligh, J. (2004). Approaches to learning and studying in medical students: Validation of a revised inventory and its relation to student characteristics and performance. Medical Education, 38, 535–543.

Northouse, P. G. (2010). Leadership: Theory and practice (5th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

Pillai, R., & Williams, E. A. (2004). Transformational leadership, self-efficacy, group cohesiveness, commitment, and performance. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 17(2), 144 159. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810410530584.

Pintrich, P.R., Smith, D.A. F., Garcia, T., & McKeachie, W. J. (1991). A manual for the use of the motivated strategies for learning questionnaire (MSLQ). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, National Center for Research to Improve Postsecondary Teaching and Learning.

Pounder, J. S. (2003). Employing transformational leadership to enhance the quality of management development instruction. The Journal of Management Development, 22, 6-13. Retrieved March 1, 2010, from ABI/Inform.

Pounder, J. S. (2006). Transformational classroom leadership: The fourth wave of teacher leadership? Educational management administration & leadership, 34(4), 533-545. Doi: 10.1177=1741143206068216

Pounder, J. S. (2008). Transformational classroom leadership: A novel approach to evaluating classroom performance. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 33, 233-243. Retrieved March 1, 2010, from ABI/Inform.

Pounder, J. S. (2014). Quality teaching through transformational classroom leadership. Quality Assurance in Education: An International Perspective, 22(3), 273-285.

Pyo, S, J., N., & Kim, M. (2008). Influence of Physical Education Teacher’s Transformational Leadership on Trust and Class Satisfaction. Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education, 25(2), 526-537.

Richmond, V. P. (1990). Communication in the classroom: Power and motivation. Communication Education, 39(3), 181-195.

Rogers, C. R. (1983). Freedom to learn for the 80’s. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill.

Rowlands, S. (2010). Nontraditional students: The impact of role strain on their identity. Department of Workforce Education and Development in the Graduate School. Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Ryan, R. M., Kuhl, J., & Deci, E. L. (1997). Nature and autonomy: Organizational view of social and neurobiological aspects of self-regulation in behavior and development. Development and Psychopathology, 9, 701–728.

Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary educational psychology, 25(1), 54-67.

Singh, K. (2011). Study of achievement motivation in relation to academic achievement of students. International Journal of Educational Planning &Administration, 1(2), 161-171.

Svinicki, M., & McKeachie, W. J. (2014). McKeachie’s teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (14th Ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Vallerand, R. J., Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1987). 12 intrinsic motivation in sport. Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, 15, 389-426. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1249/00003677-198700150-00015.

Wolters, C. A. (1998). Self-regulated learning and college students’ regulation of motivation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 224–235.

Walumbwa, F. O., Wu, C., & Ojode, L. A. (2004). Gender and instructional outcomes: The mediating role of leadership style. The Journal of Management Development, 23, 124-140.

Zodpey, S. P., (2004), Sample size and power analysis in medical research. Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol, 70, 123-128.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/12126

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2021 JINGKUN ZHAO

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Share us to:   

Reminder

  • How to do online submission to another Journal?
  • If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:

1. Register yourself in Journal B as an Author

  • Find the journal you want to submit to in CATEGORIES, click on “VIEW JOURNAL”, “Online Submissions”, “GO TO LOGIN” and “Edit My Profile”. Check “Author” on the “Edit Profile” page, then “Save”.

2. Submission

  • Go to “User Home”, and click on “Author” under the name of Journal B. You may start a New Submission by clicking on “CLICK HERE”.


We only use three mailboxes as follows to deal with issues about paper acceptance, payment and submission of electronic versions of our journals to databases:
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

 Articles published in Higher Education of Social Science are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).

HIGHER EDUCATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE Editorial Office

Address: 1055 Rue Lucien-L'Allier, Unit #772, Montreal, QC H3G 3C4, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138 
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net Http://www.cscanada.org 
E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

Copyright © 2010 Canadian Research & Development Center of Sciences and Cultures