The mediating role of instructional leadership in the relationship between school principals' professional capital levels and teachers' innovative teaching practices

The aim of this study is to determine the mediating role of school principals' instructional leadership skills in the relationships between the level of professional capital of school principals and teachers' innovative teaching practices. This research, conducted using a quantitative method in a relational survey design, collected data through the "Professional Capital Scale for School Principals," the "Instructional Leadership Scale," and the "Innovative Pedagogical Practices Scale for Teachers." The population of the study consists of teachers working in elementary and middle schools under the Ministry of National Education in the Arnavutköy district of Istanbul, while the sample was drawn from this population using simple random sampling, consisting of 495 teachers. Descriptive statistical analysis, independent samples t-test, analysis of variance, and correlation coefficient methods were employed to analyze the data. Additionally, IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 was used for exploratory factor analysis, AMOS for confirmatory factor analysis, and LISREL software for structural equation modeling. The results of the study indicated that there are significant and positive relationships between professional capital, instructional leadership, and innovative teaching practices; it was also found that instructional leadership has a full mediating effect on the relationship between professional capital and innovative teaching practices. Bootstrapping analysis revealed that the indirect effects in the model were significant.