The mediator role of collaborative climate in the relationship between school principals' shared instructional leadership behaviors and school effectiveness: A structural equation modeling

In this study, the mediator role of collaborative climate between shared instructional leadership behaviors and perceived school effectiveness based on school principals' views according to physical education teachers was examined by structural equation modeling. The universe of the research compose of 402 physical education teachers working in Batman in the 2022-2023 academic year. Researcher, aimed to reach whole population (n=402) and therefore, no sampling method was used. In this context, 272 physical education teachers accepted to participate in the research and the return rate of the teachers was 67.66%. In the research, SPSS (25) and AMOS Graphics (24), were used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics, relationships between variables and reliability analysis were conducted using SPSS (25), whereas, validity of data collection tools (DFA), testing of measurement model and structural equation analysis were carried out by AMOS Graphics (24) program. To determine the opinions of the teachers, the arithmetic mean (X̄) and standard deviation (SD) values obtained from the measurement tools were examined. Based on the findings obtained; It has been figured out that teachers' views on shared instructional leadership behaviors, collaborative climate and perceived school effectiveness of school principals are at the level of "agree". Additionally, according to teachers' opinions, it can be stated that shared instructional leadership is applied in schools, a collaborative climate observed and the level of effectiveness is relatively high. Correlation analysis conducted to figure out relationships between variables. According to the findings; positive, statistically significant and high level of correlation was found between shared instructional leadership behaviors and perceived school effectiveness, shared instructional leadership behaviors and collaborative climate, and perceived school effectiveness and collaborative climate of school principles. SEM was used to test the hypotheses in the research. According to the results; shared instructional leadership behaviors of school principals affect the collaborative climate and perceived school effectiveness significantly. However, the effect of collaborative climate on perceived school effectiveness is not statistically significant. According to the model results, the mediating role of the collaborative climate in the effect of school principals' shared instructional leadership behaviors on perceived school effectiveness was found to be statistically significant. The findings were discussed in the context of the literature, and suggestions were developed for practitioners and researchers.