The effects of perceived distributed leadership on teacher professional development among primary school teachers: The mediating role of teacher professional learning community

In the new context of comprehensively deepening education reform and school management oriented towards distributed leadership, analyzing the influencing factors of teachers' professional development to improve teachers' professional development is of great significance in strengthening the construction of the teaching force and promoting the high-quality development of education. Based on the theory of distributed leadership, this study used the Distributed Leadership Scale, the Teacher Professional Learning Community Scale, and the Teacher Professional Development Scale. A convenient sampling method was used to distribute questionnaires to 650 teachers in 33 primary schools in Hebei Province, China, and 593 valid questionnaires were collected. The structural equation model was employed to explore the relationships among distributed leadership, teacher professional learning communities, and teachers' professional development. The research results indicate that both distributed leadership and teacher professional learning communities can positively predict teacher professional development, and distributed leadership can positively predict teacher professional learning communities; The teacher professional learning community plays a completely mediating role between distributed leadership and teacher professional development.