Does Instructional Leadership Make a Difference? Investigating the Relationship between Instructional Leadership and Teacher Autonomy

The effect of principals’ instructional leadership style on the teaching profession has received much scrutiny. However, there is an apparent need for more studies in Turkey that address the relationships between instructional leadership and teacher autonomy. This quantitative study aimed to explore the association between principals’ instructional leadership and teacher autonomy. More importantly, the current study sought to determine the extent to which instructional leadership behaviors explain the variance in teacher autonomy. Two existing scales were conducted to collect data from 500 teachers. We conducted descriptive statistics analysis to measure the teachers’ perception of instructional leadership and teacher autonomy, the bivariate correlation was used to assess the relationship between the variables and finally we conducted a regression analysis to examine the extent to which instructional leadership explains variance in teacher autonomy. The result indicates a positive relationship between principals’ instructional leadership and teacher autonomy. More importantly, the result of regression analysis reveals that principals’ instructional leadership style is a predictor of teacher autonomy. The implications and limitations of this study, as well as recommendations for future researchers, are presented.