Innovative Leadership, Teacher Professional Development, and Teacher Motivation: The Mediating Role of Teacher Self-Efficacy in Ghanaian Senior High Schools

Abstract

The motivation of teachers in sub-Saharan African educational settings has been a continuous dilemma, especially where the lack of resources clashes with the need for pedagogical creativity. This study examined the mediating aspect of teacher self-efficacy in the correlation between innovative leadership, teacher professional development (TPD), and teacher motivation among senior high school teachers in Ghana. The study utilised the positivist, explanatory, and cross-sectional survey design underlined by the Self-Determination and Social Cognitive theories. The survey questionnaire was self-designed and administered to a convenience sample of 351 Senior High School teachers in the public and private schools in the Volta Region, Ghana. The partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was employed to analyse the data in 5,000 bootstrap sub-samples. Data analysis revealed that innovative leadership characterised had a positive, significant influence on teacher self-efficacy (= 0.459, p =0.001) but had no statistically significant direct effect on teacher motivation (=0.121, p=0.064). The effect of teacher professional development was found to have a direct significant impact on teacher motivation (= 0.583, p = 0.001) and teacher self-efficacy (= 0.132, p = 0.001). Teacher self-efficacy was a strong predictor of teacher motivation (0.209, p < 0.001) and mediated the relationship between innovative leadership and teacher motivation (0.099, p = 0.020) as well as the TPD - motivation relationship (0.027, p = 0.007). The structural model pointed out a 44.2% variance in teacher motivation. This suggests teacher self-efficacy is an essential psychological process that enables institutional leadership and professional growth to manifest into long-term motivational results for teachers. It is important that educational policymakers and administrators of schools incorporate efficacy-building measures in leadership development and teacher professional development programmes.