Curriculum leadership and instructional quality: A moderated mediation model of teacher agency and leader–member exchange

This study investigates the relationship between curriculum leadership and teachers’ self-reported instructional quality by integrating mediation and moderation perspectives within a unified framework. Drawing on data from 711 teachers, it examines whether curriculum leadership is indirectly associated with instructional quality through teacher agency and whether this association varies depending on the quality of leader–member exchange (LMX). The findings indicate that curriculum leadership is both directly and indirectly associated with instructional quality, with teacher agency statistically accounting for part of this association. In addition, LMX moderates the relationship between curriculum leadership and teacher agency, resulting in variation in the indirect association across levels of LMX. The indirect association between curriculum leadership and instructional quality through teacher agency is stronger at higher levels of LMX. These results suggest that leadership-related associations are neither uniform nor exclusively direct; instead, they vary with teacher agency and relational dynamics within schools. By conceptualising curriculum leadership as a relational and context-sensitive process, this study extends existing approaches that primarily emphasise direct associations. It further contributes to the literature by distinguishing curriculum leadership from broader instructional leadership frameworks and by showing how leadership-related associations involve both teacher-level and relational processes.