The Effect of Directors’ Transformational Leadership on Teachers’ Digital Pedagogy in Early-Childhood Education and Care: The Sequential Mediating Effects of Learning Agility and Digital Collaborative Learning Behavior

Objectives: With the rapid advancement of digital transformation, digital pedagogy has become a core element of contemporary early-childhood education and care (ECEC). This study examined the relationship between directors’ transformational leadership and teachers’ digital pedagogy in ECEC, and tested whether learning agility and digital collaborative learning behavior sequentially mediated this relationship.Methods: Participants were 203 early-childhood teachers (teaching three- to five-year-olds) working in kindergartens and daycare centers in Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Daejeon. Transformational leadership, learning agility, digital collaborative learning behavior, and digital pedagogy were measured using validated instruments adapted for early-childhood settings. Data were analyzed using SPSS PROCESS macro 4.2, and indirect effects were tested using bootstrapping.Results: Directors’ transformational leadership had a directly negative effect on teachers’ digital pedagogy. Learning agility significantly mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and digital pedagogy, and digital collaborative learning behavior also served as a significant mediator. In addition, a significant indirect effect of transformational leadership on digital pedagogy was found through the sequential pathway of learning agility, followed by digital collaborative learning behavior.Conclusion: This study provides an integrated understanding of the mechanisms underlying digital pedagogy in ECEC. Its findings suggest that the influence of transformational leadership on digital pedagogy is better explained by teachers’ learning agility and digital collaborative learning behavior than by a direct leadership effect alone. These results offer empirical evidence to inform directors’ leadership development and professional development policies for teachers aimed at supporting sustainable digital pedagogy in ECEC.