A Study on the Relationships between Distributed Leadership Style and the Academic Achievement of Students in Schools of Tehran

This study investigated the structural model of distributed leadership style on academic achievement mediated by teacher academic optimism, teacher job satisfaction, and teacher commitment. For the purposes of this study, a sample of 406 teachers from twenty school districts in Tehran, were selected. Teachers participating in this study responded to the questionnaire survey and the academic achievement of students were measured based on their scores in math and science courses. The latent variable measurement model was confirmed by the confirmatory factor analysis. The effect of leadership style and mediating variables on proposed model and final model were analyzed. The findings of the study revealed that the proposed model was relatively in good fit but one of the paths was not significant. With the modified model and the final model, all the direct and indirect impacts were significant. The data showed a good fit with this general model, and 0.11 of the variance academic achievement was explained. The results of this study reveal the importance of the indirect effect of distributed leadership style and the effect of mediating variables.