The Role of Teacher Leadership Components in Students’ Academic Responsibility and Self-Regulation: The Mediating Role of Self-Directed Learning

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the relationships between teacher leadership components and students’ academic responsibility and academic self-regulation, with particular emphasis on the mediating role of self-directed learning among lower-secondary school students. Methods and Materials: This descriptive-correlational study was conducted among lower-secondary school students in Salah al-Din Governorate, Iraq, and their teachers during the 2025 academic year. Using multistage cluster sampling, 400 students and 400 of their teachers were selected. Data were collected using the Hoveyda et al. Teacher Leadership Scale, Lewis Student Responsibility Questionnaire, Zimmerman and Pons Self-Regulation Scale, and Fisher and King Self-Directed Learning Questionnaire. The hypothesized relationships among the study variables were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), which enabled simultaneous assessment of the direct and indirect effects specified in the proposed conceptual model. Findings: The inferential results demonstrated significant relationships between teacher leadership and self-directed learning, academic responsibility, and academic self-regulation. Self-directed learning was also significantly related to both academic responsibility and academic self-regulation. Furthermore, the structural model supported significant indirect effects of teacher leadership on academic responsibility and academic self-regulation through self-directed learning, confirming the mediating role of self-directed learning in the proposed relationships. Thus, stronger teacher leadership was associated with enhanced student responsibility and self-regulatory functioning both directly and through the development of self-directed learning. Conclusion: The findings indicate that teacher leadership represents an important educational factor associated with students’ academic responsibility and self-regulation, while self-directed learning serves as a meaningful mechanism through which these relationships operate. Strengthening teacher leadership competencies and simultaneously developing students’ self-directed learning skills may therefore provide an effective educational pathway for promoting greater responsibility, autonomous learning, and academic self-regulation among lower-secondary school students, with potential benefits for their broader academic and psychoeducational outcomes.