The influence of teacher leadership on student self-determination in higher education: The moderating role of institutional support and classroom climate

The importance of teacher leadership in enhancing student learning outcomes, including the fundamental components of self-determination: autonomy, competence, and relatedness, is increasingly recognised. Nonetheless, contextual elements affect the effectiveness of teacher leadership in enhancing student self-determination, yet remain little examined in the higher education context. Addressing this, the present study aims to investigate the influence of teacher leadership, as conceptualized by the Full-Range Leadership Model, on student self-determination, emphasising the moderating role of institutional support and classroom climate. Employing a cross-sectional design, the study involved 420 participants who were selected using a stratified sampling. Data were collected through questionnaires and then analysed using structural equation modelling. The study results showed that both transformational and transactional teacher leadership were positively related to student self-determination, while non-leadership teachers showed no significant association. Furthermore, institutional support did not significantly moderate these relationships. Conversely, classroom climate significantly moderated the relationship between teacher leadership and student self-determination in a way that strengthened the influence of transformational leadership and diminished that of transactional leadership on student self-determination. These results highlight the pivotal role of proximal classroom environments over distal institutional mechanisms in shaping the relationship between teacher leadership and student self-determination in higher education. The study contributes to the growing body of knowledge in the field by situating the intersection of teacher leadership and student self-determination within the unique institutional, cultural, and resource realities of higher education. The study implications underscore the need for context-sensitive teacher leadership development, classroom climate enhancement, and policy frameworks that bridge the gap in institutional support to effectively sustain student self-determination.