An Exploration of the Relationship between Teacher Change Beliefs and Teacher Attitudes towards Change

Abstract

The purpose of the study was twofold: a) to examine the causal relationship of teacher change beliefs (TCB) and teacher attitudes toward change (TATC); b) to investigate the moderating effects of Principal Change Leadership Competencies (PCLC), gender, age, year of experience, and school location on the above relationship. A total of 936 teachers from 47 High Performing Secondary School in Malaysia completed the survey. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was applied to test the models whereas multi-group comparison method in SEM was conducted to examine the moderating effects. The result demonstrated that TCB was significantly related to TATC (.89). This implied that TCB shapes TATC and provides the foundation for adoptive or resistance behaviours in school change. The findings also showed that PCLC facilitated significantly the causal relationship between TCB and TATC. Hence, school principals need to equip themselves with PCLC so to enhance positive TCB and TATC to advance change goals. However, it was found that the moderating effects of demographic factors such as gender, age, year of experience and school location were not significant moderating variables. The study offers relevant parties a lens through which they could better understand, prepare for, or enhance teacher capacity for change.