Organizational levers for instructional quality: strengthening ICT agency through autonomy and school leadership

Abstract This study investigates the multidimensional relationships among teachers’ demographic characteristics, professional experience, workload, and their ICT agency and instructional quality for creativity. Utilizing teacher questionnaire data from the Programme for International Student Assessment 2022, the research examines three dimensions of instructional quality for creativity, consisting of openness for creativity, creative teaching, and mindset for creativity, alongside ICT agency indicators. With the hierarchical linear modeling mixed-effects approach, the findings demonstrate that teachers’ ICT agency and instructional quality are substantially enhanced when they experience higher levels of instructional autonomy and receive sustained support from school leadership. Teachers’ ICT agency consistently emerges as a key driver of creativity-oriented instructional quality, highlighting the integral role of digital competence in enabling innovative pedagogical practices. Moreover, the results illuminate the complex and interdependent pathways through which gender, teaching experience, educational attainment, and workload shape teachers’ professional engagement. The results shed light on the foundational importance of organizational conditions, particularly autonomy-supportive leadership, in fostering technological competence of teachers and cultivating learning environments that prioritize creativity and innovation.