Studying the effect of intelligent leadership on educational performance of faculty members of public universities in Zahedan city with the mediating role of critical thinking

The purpose of the present research is to determine the effect of intelligent leadership on the educational performance of the faculty members of the public universities of Zahedan city, Iran, with the mediating role of critical thinking. This is a descriptive-correlational study based on structural equation and the statistical population consists of all the faculty members of the public universities of Zahedan city. The sample size out of 666 people was calculated to be 120 based on Cochran's formula via stratified random sampling. For data collection, a (researcher made) intelligent leadership questionnaire, critical thinking questionnaire, and (standard) educational performance questionnaire were used. The content validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by experts and the construct validity was confirmed using factor analysis. The reliability values of the questionnaires were calculated to be 0.97, 0.93 and 0.99, respectively using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. For data analysis, the SPSS23 and PLS statistical software were used. Research findings showed that intelligent leadership with a path coefficient of (0.33) was effective on educational performance; and intelligent leadership with a path coefficient of (0.58) was effective on critical thinking; and critical thinking with a path coefficient of (0.28) was effective on educational performance.