Impact of Teachers’ Leadership on the Creative Tendencies of Students: The Mediating Role of Goal-orientation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Based on the interactionist model of creativity and theories of social information processing, an empirical investigation was conducted to assess the influence of teachers’ transformational leadership on junior high school students’ creative tendencies and the mediating effects of goal orientation. The samples consisted of junior high school students from schools in Central and Eastern China. The major findings were: (1) teachers’ transformational leadership increased students’ creative tendencies; and (2) students’ mastery goal-orientation, but not performance goal-orientation, partially mediated the relation between teachers’ transformational leadership and students’ creative tendencies, accounting for 58.11% of the total effect. Finally, the significance and limitation of this research were discussed.