Lecturer’s transformational leadership and student’s attitude outcome: Organizational effectiveness in higher education context

Abstract

Higher education institutions are the witness of organizational perception shifting from "student" to "customer". Therefore, an effective lecturer's leadership is critically needed. This study aims at analyzing the role of a lecturer's transformational leadership and class climate in influencing student’s attitude in the higher education context. The samples of this study were 150 students in the big five faculty at Udayana University, Bali, Indonesia, namely the Faculty of Humanities, Medicine, Engineering, Law, and Economics and Business determined by quota sampling. The data collection method used was a self-administered questionnaire. The technique of analysis implemented for testing the hypotheses was Structural Equation Modeling-Partial Least Square (SEM-PLS). The findings show that for direct effect, transformational leadership of the lecture has a positive and significant effect on objective commitment, learning motivation, and learning satisfaction of students; class climate has a positive and significant influence on learning satisfaction of students; and learning motivation has a positive and significant effect on student's objective commitment. Meanwhile, learning motivation has no impact on learning satisfaction. The results of the indirect effect show that learning motivation partially mediate the effect of lecturer’s transformational leadership on student’s objective commitment. Meanwhile, the learning motivation of students does not emerge as a mediator of the effect of transformational leadership on learning satisfaction. It is for the lecturers to develop and improve student learning motivation through their leadership which furtherly affects students' objective commitment in the endeavor to achieve high academic performance.