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Anat Barth1*
Sigalit Tsemach12†- 1Department of Educational Administration, Michlala Jerusalem Collage, Jerusalem, Israel
- 2Department of Educational Administration, Hemdat College of Education, Netivot, Israel
Introduction: Parental involvement has become a key component of school success. Both in terms of organizational functioning and students’ individual excellence. Many factors influence parental involvement, one of which is teachers’ attitudes toward it. The way teachers address parental involvement is shaped by personal, professional, cultural, and organizational characteristics. The current study explores the influence of principals’ leadership styles (i.e., transformational, authentic, and participative) on teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement, and identifies which styles are the most effective predictors of positive attitudes of the latter.
Methods: Six hundred and twenty-two teachers completed an online questionnaire distributed through social media.
Results: Stepwise Linear Regression revealed that participative leadership is a main contributor to positive teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement. Authentic leadership also contributes positively to these attitudes, while transformational leadership does not predict regarding these attitudes at all.
Discussion: The results suggest that empowering teachers in school processes and fostering an ethical climate are mechanisms that allow principals to improve teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement. However, focusing on inspiration, individual consideration, intellectual stimulation, or functioning as a role model does not effectively improve these attitudes. These findings may be attributed to the organizational security that participative and authentic leadership provide, and to the fact that transformational leadership, which fosters personal commitment, does not address external challenges such as interactions with parents. In practice, understanding the unique contributions of each leadership style can help principals choose the appropriate actions to address specific organizational challenges. In conclusion, overall, the study highlights the importance of participative and authentic leadership in promoting positive teacher attitudes toward parental involvement, which is crucial for school success.
Introduction
Parental involvement
In the past, parents were detached from schools’ internal processes and development; nowadays, parental involvement is considered an integral part of school life. Parents are involved in school life by supporting learning at home, increasing students’ classroom engagement, and even shaping school policies (Fisher, 2016). There are several models of parental involvement, such as parents as observers, parents as service providers, and parents as partners in dialog (Agam Ben Artzi and Greenbank, 2023).
Epstein (2007) conceptualized parental involvement in schools through six key aspects. The first aspect is parenting, which refers to parents’ understanding of child development and the use of effective parenting skills. The second aspect is communication, which involves reciprocal interactions between parents and teachers regarding the exchange of information about the student. The third aspect is volunteering, in which parents contribute their time and efforts to school activities. The fourth aspect is learning at home, which relates to parents’ involvement in homework and their child’s future academic planning. The fifth aspect is decision-making, that is parents’ participation in schools’ decisions, enabling them to influence school policies and activities. The final aspect is collaboration with the community, pertaining specifically to parents’ contributing to the schools’ efforts at affecting the broader community.
Parental involvement influences multiple social circles including students, teachers, and the school as a whole. Research has found parental involvement to improve students’ academic achievements in mathematics and science in Japan (Otani, 2020). The conclusions in a meta-analysis of nine previous meta-analyses reinforce the findings of a positive relationship between parental involvement and students’ achievement across school levels and ethnic groups (Wilder, 2023). Poor parental involvement is associated with problematic student behavior (Caridade et al., 2021). As for teachers, parental involvement increases their job satisfaction (El-Hilali and Al-Rashidi, 2015) as well as affective commitment (Zibenberg and Grinshtain, 2024). Regarding schools, parents’ involvement in the pedagogical aspect thereof tends to change the school’s position on the continuum of traditional-innovative pedagogy: parents of students in traditional schools try to promote innovative learning, while parents of students in innovative schools try to advance traditional learning (Haisraeli and Fogiel-Bijaoui, 2023).
Teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement
In practice, parental involvement is complex. Teachers see low parental involvement as a result of their heavy workload and of parents’ negative attitudes toward them, while parents see minimal involvement on their part as a result of teachers’ lack of training in involving the parents. Principals want to improve parental involvement, and are willing to address this issue as part of teachers’ evaluation, while teachers disagree with their evaluation including parental involvement (Anastasiou and Papagianni, 2020).
Teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement in Israel tend to be positive, yet only when it suits the teachers’ agenda. Once parents criticize and confront the teachers their attitudes toward parental involvement can be negative (Agam Ben Artzi and Greenbank, 2023). Teachers holding positive attitudes toward parental involvement tend to have a higher perception of self-efficacy (Fisher and Kostelitz, 2015), and their students’ achievements are better (Foster et al., 2017). Teachers’ promotion of parental involvement has some positive implications. Teachers’ invitation of parental involvement supports better parental involvement (Yulianti et al., 2022), and parent-teacher collaboration promotes help-seeking behaviors of parents (Harpaz and Grinshtain, 2020).
Several factors influence teachers’ attitudes and practices in relation to parental involvement. Some factors are personal, such as teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement; these play a significant role in shaping the extent of their actual practices in engaging parents (Demircan and Erden, 2015; Magwa and Mugari, 2017). There are professional factors, such as training programs that emphasize communication strategies, collaborative planning, and problem-solving skills, and they too are crucial for fostering positive parental engagement (Smith and Sheridan, 2019). Lastly, there are organizational factors; teachers’ roles within the school and their capacity to influence school processes help reduce conflicts between them and parents (Addi-Raccah and Grinshtain, 2022). Other organizational factors are cultural aspects, which have implications on teachers’ perception of parental involvement. In the Israeli educational system, parents of Arab students are perceived as having higher parenting and helping-at-school skills, while Jewish parents tend to have better communication, as well as more obstacles preventing parental involvement (Schaedel et al., 2015). The teacher’s branch of education, i.e., special versus general, also affects their attitudes toward parental involvement. General education teachers have more positive attitudes toward parental involvement than special education teachers (Agam Ben Artzi and Greenbank, 2023). Certain principals’ leadership styles, those being transformational, transactional (Arar et al., 2016), instructional (Shaked, 2022), authentic (Salip and Quines, 2023), and participative (Addi-Raccah and Grinshtain, 2022) all promote better teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement.
Principals’ leadership styles as a predictor of teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement
Leadership means a leader’s power to influence their followers to achieve organizational goals. Leadership is important to any organization in order to attain optimal organizational functioning, and to be able to create and manage change; this is particularly important in the educational field. Educational leadership focuses on pedagogical issues, and differs from other kinds of leadership due to multiple professional and political reforms, organizational decentralization processes (Nir et al., 2016), and loneliness on the job (Dor-Haim and Oplatka, 2020). A principal’s role, in the classic understanding thereof, includes vision, pedagogical knowledge, team management, administrative duties, and relationships with stakeholders and the community (Arar et al., 2017). In order to fulfill their tasks, principals need to apply various leadership styles. This research focuses on three of these leadership styles—transformational, authentic, and participative—and their ability to predict the attitude toward parental involvement of teachers under each leadership style, respectively.
Transformational leadership is part of the ‘full range of leadership’ model, which includes eight leadership behaviors analyzed on the axes of activity and effectiveness. These behaviors create three hierarchical leadership styles: transformational, transactional, and no leadership (Bass and Avolio, 1993). Transformational leadership is an active and effective leadership which motivates followers in four ways: individualized consideration, which gives followers appropriate personal and professional attention; intellectual stimulation, which allows followers to think ‘out of the box’ and rethink working models; inspirational motivation, which connects the followers to organizational goals; and idealized influence, i.e., the ability of the leader to be a role model, and to create trust and commitment (Avolio et al., 1999).
School principals’ transformational leadership has numerous positive implications in the educational system. Transformational leadership was found to increase positive behavior and attitudes in teachers. Teachers’ behavior includes organizational citizenship behavior, referring to volunteering for the benefit of the school and the other teachers (Nasra and Heilbrunn, 2016), and emotional reframing behavior (Berkovich and Eyal, 2017). Teachers’ attitudes include job satisfaction (Nasra and Heilbrunn, 2016), organizational commitment (Cohen and Majid, 2020), and self-efficacy (Eliophotou Menon and Lefteri, 2021).
In Israel, school principals’ transformational leadership was found to be positively correlated with teachers’ perception of higher achievements of their students, more parental involvement of the type that empowers teachers, and a greater influence that principals’ and teachers’ have on the increase in parental involvement (Arar et al., 2016). Similar findings were obtained in research regarding teachers in Indonesia, where teachers’ perception of principals’ transformational leadership was positively associated with a more positive stance regarding parental involvement (Yulianti et al., 2021).
The authentic leadership style was developed by Avolio et al. (2004) as an additional concept to the “full range of leadership” model. This style includes four components: self-awareness, which means the acknowledgement of personal and others’ respective strengths and weak points; relational transparency, that is to say the open sharing of information, beliefs and feeling; balanced processing, to wit, consulting others before decision making, with the ability to change one’s mind; and internalized moral perspective, meaning displaying a strong moral code and holding on to it even in time of crisis (Avolio et al., 2018).
Teachers’ perception of authentic leadership in educational systems promotes teachers’ organizational citizenship behavior and empowerment, including meaning, self-efficacy, participation in decision making and influence over school processes (Shapira-Lishchinsky and Tsemach, 2014). Authentic leadership increases teachers’ organizational commitment and decreases burnout, the latter referring to emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of sense of accomplishment (Tsemach and Barth, 2023). It also increases teachers’ professional identity and career aspirations (Tsemach and Shapira-Lishchinsky, 2021). Teachers’ perception of principals’ authentic leadership was positively connected to their perception of organizational climate in general, and to parental involvement in school as part of organizational climate in particular (Salip and Quines, 2023).
Participative leadership refers to the partial or full participation of employees in organizational decision-making (Koopman and Wierdsma, 1998). Participative leadership is a common practice in the educational system as a result of social attributes such as democratic values, organizational attributes, e.g., specialization in different educational fields, and psychological attributes such as the quality of mutual decision-making and the motivation of all parties to accomplish the set goal (Horriyah and Spanioli, 2017). In the educational field, participative leadership is expressed in pedagogical and organizational participation in decision-making. Brezicha et al. (2020) show that there is a gap between principals’ perception of the opportunity given for participation in decision-making, and the perception of teachers, who feel they have fewer such opportunities.
Participative leadership in schools was found to improve students’ academic performance (Cherotich et al., 2024). As for teachers’, it increases their organizational commitment (Abd El Qader and Benoliel, 2024), morale, performance (Cherotich et al., 2024), trust (Da’as, 2020) and job satisfaction, and decreases their sense of burnout (Benoliel and Barth, 2017) and absenteeism (Da’as, 2021). Addi-Raccah and Grinshtain (2022) showed that teachers’ feeling of participation in decision making in school reduces conflict between parents and teachers.
Problem statement and objective
As seen so far, each of the leadership styles presented has a positive influence on teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement (Addi-Raccah and Grinshtain, 2022; Arar et al., 2016; Salip and Quines, 2023). Yet, there is no available research comparing the three leadership styles among themselves regarding their influence on the issue. Each one of the leadership styles provides the teacher with different resources. Transformational leadership provides psychological tools for dealing with challenges. Authentic leadership gives the teacher ethical guidelines that help them understand challenges and navigate through them. Participative leadership focuses on practical distribution of power in the organization, and equips the teacher with the ability to influence their own destiny.
Past research that compared the respective effectiveness of these leaderships with regard to other phenomena revealed that authentic leadership was found to be more effective than transformational leadership in increasing job satisfaction (Rodriguez et al., 2017) as well as commitment (Malloy and Kavussanu, 2021). It seems that participative leadership has a stronger effect than transformational leadership on employees’ performance (Nazir and Shah, 2014). The comparison between participative leadership and authentic leadership on teachers’ performance indicates a similar contribution of the two (Daryadi et al., 2018). Although these studies did not investigate the issue of teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement, their results might hint toward a positive influence of all three leadership styles, but mainly of participative and authentic leadership. In line with the literature review, the research aims to explore the influence of principals’ leadership styles on teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement and identify the most effective predictors. Accordingly, the research hypotheses are as follows:
H1: Principals’ transformational leadership will be positively correlated with teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement.
H2: Principals’ authentic leadership will be positively correlated with teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement.
H3: Principals’ participative leadership will be positively correlated with teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement.
H4: All three leadership styles will predict teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement, yet participative leadership and authentic leadership will be more powerful predictors than transformational leadership.
Method
Type of research and approach
The study employs a quantitative, descriptive-correlational approach, which is appropriate for examining relationships between variables and predicting outcomes. As the research objective is to explore the influence of principals’ leadership styles on teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement and to identify the most effective predictors, the aforementioned method is justified.
Participants
Six hundred and twenty two Jewish Israeli teachers participated in the research. Their demographic characteristics are presented in Table 1.
Table 1
Table 1. Descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentage/means, standard deviations) for critical variables.
Instruments
Five questionnaires were used in order to answer the research questions. The first questionnaire addressed the dependent variable: teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement. The following questionnaires addressed the independent variables: transformational leadership, authentic leadership, and participative leadership. Lastly, a demographic questionnaire was added in order to describe the research population and examine control variables.
The teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement questionnaire, measuring the dependent variable, is part of a more comprehensive questionnaire regarding parental involvement in school, which was created by Barak (1996). The questionnaire used in this study regards teachers’ perception of parental involvement. The original version includes 36 items divided into five dimensions. In the current research, only the dimension of teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement was used including 13 items (items 7 and 8 are reversed). Respondents were asked to rank their agreement with the statements on a 5-point Likert scale from (1) – do not agree at all to (5) – very much agree. Reliability using Cronbach’s alpha test yielded a satisfactory degree of 0.86.
The transformational Leadership questionnaire, measuring one of the independent variables, is based on the MLQ (Multiple Leadership Questionnaire) Form 5X-Short (MLQ 5X) (Avolio et al., 1999). The original questionnaire consisted of 34 items regarding transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership. In the current research, 20 questions regarding transformational leadership were used, including: idealized influence (11 items), inspirational motivation (2 items), intellectual stimulation (4 items), and individualized consideration (3 items). Respondents were asked to rank the agreement with the statements on a 5-point Likert scale from (1) – do not agree at all to (5) – very much agree. Reliability using Cronbach’s alpha test yielded a satisfactory degree of 0.96.
The authentic leadership questionnaire, measuring one of the independent variables, is Walumbwa et al.’s (2008) original authentic leadership questionnaire, and consists of 16 items. In the current research, all items were used, including self-awareness (4 items), relational transparency (5 items), internalized moral reasoning (4 items), and balanced processing (3 items). Respondents were asked to rank the agreement with the statements on a 5-point Likert scale from (1) – do not agree at all to (5) – very much agree. Reliability using Cronbach’s alpha test yielded a satisfactory degree of 0.94.
The participative Leadership questionnaire, measuring one of the independent variables, is Sagie’s (1997) participative leadership questionnaire, consisting of 3 items. In the current research, all items were used. Respondents were asked to rank the agreement with the statements on a 5-point Likert scale from (1) – do not agree at all to (5) – very much agree. Reliability using Cronbach’s alpha test yielded a satisfactory degree of 0.89.
The demographic questionnaire was composed for the current research, in order to capture background information and control variables. The questionnaire includes personal questions regarding age (in years), gender (male, female), marital status (married, single, divorced, widowed), number of children, and religiosity (ultra-Orthodox, modern-Orthodox, traditional, secular). The questionnaire also includes professional questions regarding seniority (in years), teachers’ education (certified teacher, B.Ed, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree), and the teacher’s role in school (managerial, coordinator, homeroom teacher, disciplinary teacher). Lastly, organizational questions addressed school level (elementary-school, middle-school, high-school), number of students in the school, and principals’ gender (male, female).
Procedure
Teachers were approached through social media networks. This sampling method is part of convenience sampling, which involves a population that is easily reachable by the researcher. The main limitation of this non-probability sampling method is that it might not represent the population being studied (Golzar et al., 2022). The teachers completed an online questionnaire during the period from November 2021 to January 2022. A link to the questionnaire was sent to the teachers through social media, allowing them to answer the questionnaire at their convenience. The questions were not divided into different stages, so the participants could address any questions at any time.
Ethical considerations
The research adhered to ethical guidelines, including participants’ digital consent to participate in the study. The questionnaire included an introductory statement outlining the research’s purpose: to explore teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement in relation to principals’ leadership styles. Participants were assured of anonymity, and in line with this commitment, no personal information that could identify the participants (email, ID number, or phone number) was collected. Participants were informed that they could withdraw from the study at any time before submitting the questionnaire. An ethical approval was attained from the Michlalah Jerusalem College (Number: 032).
Data analysis
In order to answer the research questions, SPSS version 28 was used. In the preliminary stage teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement were checked across all demographic variables to allow supervision over these relationships. Pearson correlation tests were then performed to explore the correlations between teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement and principals’ leadership styles. Lastly, stepwise linear regression was carried out to examine the principals’ leadership styles influence on teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement.
Results
Preliminary results
In order to supervise the demographic variables Pearson correlations, t test and ANOVA test were carried out. In the category of personal characteristics, no significant correlation was found between teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement and teachers’ age (r = −0.008, p = NS). No significant difference was found between male teachers (M = 3.21, SD = 0.71) and female teachers (M = 3.15, SD = 0.67) in their attitudes toward parental involvement (t(620) = −0.68, p = NS). No significant difference was found between married teachers (M = 3.17, SD = 0.67), single teachers (M = 3.12, SD = 0.69), divorced teachers (M = 2.97, SD = 0.61), and widowed teachers (M = 3.25, SD = 0.38) in their attitudes toward parental involvement (F(3, 618) = 0.60, p = NS). No significant correlation was found between teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement and the number of teachers’ children (r = 0.05, p = NS). No significant difference was found between ultra-Orthodox teachers (M = 3.171, SD = 0.68), modern Orthodox teachers (M = 3.17, SD = 0.66), traditional teachers (M = 3.34, SD = 0.614), and secular teachers (M = 3.08, SD = 0.71) in their attitudes toward parental involvement (F(3, 618) = 1.60, p = NS).
As for professional characteristics, no significant correlation was found between teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement and teachers’ seniority (r = 0.002, p = NS). No significant difference was found between certified teachers (M = 3.16, SD = 0.75), teachers holding B.Ed (M = 3.19, SD = 0.63), teachers with a bachelor’s degree (M = 3.08, SD = 0.69), and teachers with a master’s degree (M = 3.17, SD = 0.69) in their attitudes toward parental involvement (F(3, 618) = 0.71, p = NS). A significant difference was found between teachers in managerial positions (M = 3.37, SD = 0.70), teachers in coordinator positions (M = 3.20, SD = 0.65), homeroom teachers (M = 3.19, SD = 0.67), and disciplinary teachers (M = 3.07, SD = 0.67) in their attitudes toward parental involvement (F(3, 618) = 2.67, p < 0.05). LSD post hoc test showed that teachers in managerial positions have more positive attitudes toward parental involvement than do disciplinary teachers. No significant differences were found between the other groups.
As for organizational characteristics, a significant difference was found between elementary school teachers (M = 3.09, SD = 0.67), middle school teachers (M = 3.29, SD = 0.64), and high school teachers (M = 3.12, SD = 0.63) in their attitudes toward parental involvement (F(2, 576) = 3.71, p < 0.05). LSD post hoc test showed that middle school teachers have more positive attitudes toward parental involvement than do elementary and high school teachers. No significant differences were found between elementary and high school teachers. No significant correlation was found between teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement and number of students in school (r = −0.02, p = NS). No significant difference was found between teachers under the principalship of male principals (M = 3.19, SD = 0.68) and teachers under the principalship of female principals (M = 3.09, SD = 0.66) in their attitudes toward parental involvement (t(619) = −0.681.74, p = NS). In line with the preliminary results, the teacher’s role in school as well as the school’s educational level were added to the regression analysis.
Research results
In order to examine hypotheses 1 to 3, regarding the relationship between teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement and leadership styles, Pearson correlation tests were performed. Results are presented in Table 2.
Table 2
Table 2. Correlation matrix showing relationships between variables (N = 622).
Table 2 approves hypotheses 1 to 3, showing a positive correlation between teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement and transformational, authentic, and participative leadership styles.
In order to examine the fourth hypothesis, a stepwise linear regression was carried out. In line with the preliminary results, the teacher’s role in school and the school’s level were added to the three leadership styles. Results are presented in Table 3.
Table 3
Table 3. Regression analysis results, including coefficients, beta values, and significance levels.
Table 3 partially approves the fourth hypothesis. Firstly, the demographic characteristics that were found to relate to teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement did not predict these attitudes. As for the different leadership styles, the main contributor to teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement is participative leadership, predicting 4% of the variables’ variance. The secondary contributor is authentic leadership, predicting 3% of teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement. Transformational leadership did not predict teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement.
Discussion
The importance of parental involvement on students’ lives has been extensively documented (Wilder, 2023). One of the main factors shaping parental involvement is the teachers’ attitudes toward such involvement (Bąk-Średnicka, 2017; Yulianti et al., 2022), hence the importance of understanding its predictors. A thorough examination of the role of principals can offer an effective organizational solution that requires focused investment. However, principals can avail themselves of a wide variety of leadership styles, including transformational, authentic, and participative leadership, which can confuse them when building a solution to a specific problem. The comparison of different leadership styles’ respective degrees of effectiveness has focused those styles’ effect on job satisfaction (Rodriguez et al., 2017), commitment (Malloy and Kavussanu, 2021), and performance (Nazir and Shah, 2014); the topic of teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement has yet to receive specific attention. Therefore, the current research explores the influence of principals’ leadership styles on teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement, and identifies the most effective predictors.
The results support a positive correlation between all three leadership styles and teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement. As found in past research, school principals’ transformational leadership is positively associated with teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement (Arar et al., 2016; Yulianti et al., 2021), as are authentic (Salip and Quines, 2023), and participative leadership (Addi-Raccah and Grinshtain, 2022). These results support previously established knowledge and provide additional academic backing for this information.
The novelty of the current research lies in its aim to compare different leadership styles and understand which leadership profile is most effective in enhancing teachers’ positive attitudes toward parental involvement. The results show that principals’ participative leadership is the most effective way to achieve this goal. This result can be explained by the practical nature of participative leadership, which allows teachers to make a change in the school and be part of the leadership team. This new organizational perspective helps teachers value the other stakeholders in and outside of the school and invite more collaboration with them.
Authentic leadership was also found to predict teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement, contributing to a similar extent to this prediction. This finding might suggest that clear moral and ethical guidelines on the part of principals create security and confidence for teachers in their workplace, allowing them to develop a more positive perception of their ability to engage with the community. Knowing that following the ethical code will provide them with the principal’s support and defense in times of conflict is what establishes this security and confidence.
As for principals’ transformational leadership, it did not predict teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement. However, past research comparing leadership styles found that transformational leadership did predict positive outcomes, albeit to a lesser extent than authentic (Rodriguez et al., 2017) and participative leadership (Nazir and Shah, 2014). A look into a wide body of research shows that principals’ transformational leadership did not predict parental involvement in schools in Indonesia (Yulianti et al., 2022). This result suggests that principals’ focus on vision and commitment might achieve organizational goals more than it will contribute to expanding the school’s connections with the community.
The research also revealed that teachers in different positions within the school tend to have different perceptions regarding parental involvement, with teachers in managerial positions having more positive attitudes toward parental involvement than disciplinary teachers. These results align with past research that shows that possessing a role in school leads perceiving parental involvement more favorably (Addi-Raccah and Grinshtain, 2022). The research also revealed that middle school teachers have more positive attitudes toward parental involvement than do teachers in elementary or high school. Past research has shown that parental involvement declines when students advance from elementary school to middle school (Jaiswal and Choudhuri, 2017). It might be that it is the intense parental involvement during the elementary school years that leads to a relatively negative view of such involvement, when compared to middle schoolteachers who experience much less involvement, explaining why middle school teachers are more positively inclined toward parental involvement than their elementary school colleagues.
In conclusion, the research helps to establish a leadership profile for principals tailored to the aspiration to support positive teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement. Firstly, it demonstrates that promoting such attitudes can be achieved through principals’ leadership. Although leadership styles are not the sole contributors to teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement, they are a predictor and represent 7% of the factors explaining why teachers’ attitudes are what they are. Secondly, the research offers insight into which leadership styles affect teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement and to what degree, positioning participative leadership as the primary channel for creating positive attitudes and authentic leadership as a secondary factor. Lastly, the research reveals that transformational leadership, which has many positive contributions in schools (Berkovich and Eyal, 2017; Cohen and Majid, 2020; Eliophotou Menon and Lefteri, 2021; Nasra and Heilbrunn, 2016), does not contribute to the explanation of teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement at all. Understanding the predictors is important, and at the same time recognizing that other significant factors in the environment do not predict teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement can be an effective tool for principal leadership and management.
The current research has some limitations. The study was conducted using a convenience sampling through social media, which has demonstrably led to a sample that does not fully represent the research population. For example, in the current study, only Jewish teachers participated, whereas the teachers’ population in Israel consists also of Arab teachers. Moreover, this method of sampling does not allow the researcher to determine the response rate, because they can only know how many people responded to the survey, and not how many people it reached. Future research should try to collaborate with the Ministry of Education or education departments in large municipalities to facilitate random sampling and thus provide a better representation of the teachers’ population. The study also uses only one source of information, that being teachers, who can provide information regarding their own attitudes, yet when describing their principals’ leadership styles their information is less accurate. It is recommended therefore to acquire additional sources of information, such as principals, superintendents, and even parents, in order to generate a more comprehensive understanding.
The research offers several practical implications. It is important to promote positive teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement through principals’ leadership styles. This could be achieved through special training programs for principals that focus on the development of desirable leadership styles. It is also important to emphasize to principals the management of parental involvement by informing them of their ability to influence teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement. It can also be useful for superintendents to proactively promote positive teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement, through tailored coaching of principals. This coaching should focus on engaging teachers in decision making and on leading with self-awareness, transparency, balanced processing and ethical perspective.
Data availability statement
The datasets presented in this article are not readily available because the data is still being worked on. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to YW5hdGJhcnRoQGdtYWlsLmNvbQ==.
Ethics statement
The research conducted in this study was approved by the Michlalah Jerusalem College (Number: 032), and all procedures were carried out in accordance with the ethical standards established by the committee. Informed consent was obtained from all participants involved in the study.
Author contributions
AB: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. ST: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Generative AI statement
The authors declare that no Gen AI was used in the creation of this manuscript.
Publisher’s note
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Keywords: teachers’ attitudes toward parental involvement, transformational leadership, authentic leadership, participative leadership, school
Citation: Barth A and Tsemach S (2025) Principals’ leadership styles as predictors of teachers’ attitude toward parental involvement. Front. Educ. 10:1528796. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1528796
Edited by:
Yael Fisher, Achva Academic College, IsraelReviewed by:
Gary L. Railsback, Arkansas State University, United StatesPaul M. W. Hackett, University of Suffolk, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2025 Barth and Tsemach. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Anat Barth, YW5hdGJhcnRoQGdtYWlsLmNvbQ==
†ORCID: Sigalit Tsemach, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7113-9734