INSTRUCTOR LEADERSHIP IN EFL CLASSROOMS AND THE OUTCOMES: THE EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATIONAL AND TRANSACTIONAL

In this study, classroom leadership styles of English language instructors were investigated within the Full Range Leadership (FRL) framework with the purpose of determining the relationship between instructors’ leadership styles and the outcomes of leader (the instructor in the classroom context) effectiveness, students’ extra effort and student satisfaction. Classroom Leadership Instrument, a modified version of Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, was administered to 300 students from English Language Teaching and English Language and Literature Departments at a Turkish state university. Research data were analyzed through inferential statistical tests and the results revealed that transformational leadership and active traits of transactional leadership significantly correlated with all three leadership outcomes. Consequently, the instructors with such leader characteristics appeared to be more effective teachers, whose students felt more satisfied with their teaching and displayed extra effort at a higher extent in the courses.


INSTRUCTOR LEADERSHIP IN EFL CLASSROOMS AND THE OUTCOMES: THE EFFECTS OF TRANSFORMATIONAL AND TRANSACTIONAL
Abstract: In this study, classroom leadership styles of English language instructors were investigated within the Full Range Leadership (FRL) framework with the purpose of determining the relationship between instructors' leadership styles and the outcomes of leader (the instructor in the classroom context) effectiveness, students' extra effort and student satisfaction. Classroom Leadership Instrument, a modified version of Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, was administered to 300 students from English Language Teaching and English Language and Literature Departments at a Turkish state university. Research data were analyzed through inferential statistical tests and the results revealed that transformational leadership and active traits of transactional leadership significantly correlated with all three leadership outcomes. Consequently, the instructors with such leader characteristics appeared to be more effective teachers, whose students felt more satisfied with their teaching and displayed extra effort at a higher extent in the courses.
Keywords: EFL classrooms, classroom leadership, leadership outcomes, transformational and transactional leadership DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10. 15639/teflinjournal.v31i1/70-87 Leadership has long been researched in educational and instructional contexts with a primary focus on a set of certain principal-teacher activities in such tasks as the identification of educational goals, formation of the curriculum, and assessment of teachers and teaching (Day et al., 2016). Although the ultimate goal of instructional and teacher leadership is the attainment of desirable improvements in students' learning, classroom leadership is concerned with teacher-student relationships largely taking place in classroom settings. It specifically deals with the interactional and interpersonal teacher actions that have effects on student learning in cognitive, affective and social aspects. Despite the direct link between effective classroom leadership and students' progress, both leadership and education literature tend to overlook in-class teacher leadership traits. Hence, investigating teacher leadership inside the classroom with respect to its outcomes and relations with effective language teaching and learning appears to be a distinctive approach to leadership research in instructional contexts.
The influence of effective leadership skills on the professional achievement of teachers and the academic success of students is acknowledged in several studies. Kim et al. (2000), Lee et al. (2009), Ma et al. (2017, and Wubbels and Brekelmans (2005) prove that classroom environment significantly contributes to student motivation, active engagement, and higher academic performance. Teacher effectiveness and teacher-student relationships as important aspects of group dynamics in the classroom environment bear high relevance to effective student learning (see den Brok, 2001;Farrell, 2015;Wubbels & Brekelmans, 2005). Furthermore, such social constructivist approaches as Sociocultural Learning Theory (Vygotsky, 1978), which focuses on the constructive effects of socially-mediated experiences on the cognitive and affective development of the learners, highlight the significant role of teachers in the intellectual development and learning of the students. Eventually, effective classroom leadership is crucially associated with this active role of teachers/instructors (Dörnyei & Murphey, 2009;Gai, 2005;Wubbels & Brekelmans, 2005) and the potential impact it has on the accomplishment of the learning outcomes (Bolkan & Goodboy, 2009;Cheng, 1994;Harvey et al., 2003;Noland, 2005). Apparently, leadership is among such teacher characteristics that somewhat influence both the teaching practices and teacher-student relations in EFL context. Yet, there has been scant explicit discussion on classroom leadership in both academic discourse and in the contents of teacher education programs despite the strong connection between the basic leadership principles and teaching profession itself (Greenier & Whitehead, 2016). This study is, therefore, significant since it provides an opportunity to build a bridge between leadership and foreign/second language teaching and learning (L2) literature in ways that may not have been previously explored.
In the present study, classroom leadership styles and the leadership outcomes are determined as those specified within the framework of Full Range Leadership (FRL) model. The FRL model, developed by Avolio and Bass (1991), initially emerged as an expansion of the transformational leadership theory promoted by Bass (1985), which itself was an elaboration of Burns' (1978) transactional and transforming leadership model. Although Burns' model was initially conceptualized for political contexts, it is applicable to various organizational structures including educational contexts. Later, Bass (1985) expanded Burns' (1978) transforming-transactional dichotomy and developed transformational leadership theory. In the following decade, the theory evolved into the Full Range Leadership (FRL) model (Avolio & Bass, 1991, consisting of three main types of leadership: transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership. Burns (1978) suggests that most leaders build an exchange relationship with their followers, a relation where mutual expectations and interests exist. For instance, it can be seen in the context of employment in exchange for votes or higher grades for in-time assignment submissions. Such leader-follower relationship is the essence of transactional leadership. Transforming leadership, however, bears higher potentials to motivate followers, to meet higher needs and demands, and eventually to develop "the full person of the followers" (Burns, 1978, p.4), awakening and empowering their sense of identity and selfawareness. Contrasting the essence of these two leadership styles, Bass and Bass (2008) argue that transactional leaders operate within the framework for the sake of their own interests, while transformational leaders act with an aim to change the framework. Current leadership research in educational contexts has largely focused on transformational leadership; nevertheless, transactional leadership is equally important, and the interconnectedness and complementary constructs of transformational and transactional leadership have been underlined in many studies (see Avolio & Bass, 2002;Avolio et al., 1999;Bass, 1985;Bass & Avolio, 1990;Pounder, 2005;Walumbwa & Ojode, 2000). Lastly, laissez-faire leadership is described as the most inactive form of leadership and basically refers to the avoidance of leadership (Avolio & Bass, 2002). This type of a leader refrains from taking positions and renounces his/her authority.
In FRL framework, transformational leadership is characterized with four components-idealized influence, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation and individualized consideration. Within this framework, idealized influence has two dimensions: attributed and behavior. The attributed dimension refers to the positive leader characteristics such as charisma, power or high-order ideals attributed to a transformational leader by the followers, whilst the behavior dimension includes practical actions and utterances of the leader about his/her missions, beliefs and values (Rowold, 2005). Intellectual stimulation, as another transformational trait, refers to how transformational leaders make their followers "question their assumptions, and invite innovative and creative solutions to problems" (Antonakis & House, 2002, p. 9). Promoting creativity and critical thinking is the most prominent aspect of intellectual stimulation. Inspirational motivation, the third transformational aspect, refers to how leaders communicate confidence and tend to raise followers' expectations by inspiring and motivating them to reach ambitious goals that might be considered unreachable (Antonakis & House, 2002). Lastly, individualized consideration is associated with the extent to which a transformational leader takes the followers' individual needs, weaknesses and strengths into consideration.
Transactional leadership, on the other hand, has three components: contingent reward, and active and passive management-by-exception. As the first component, contingent reward indicates how transactional leaders award the followers in return for the achievement of goals predetermined and announced by the leader. In classroom context, this might be exemplified with the bonus marks provided by teacher in exchange for completing assignments on time or for active participation in classroom activities. The second component, active management-by-exception, indicates the actions of a transactional leader monitoring the process of group work and providing corrective action in case of deviations from norms (Antonakis & House, 2002). As the last component, passive management-by-exception refers to the characteristics of passive leaders who wait until deviations from norms in follower behaviors occur before intervening.
FRL acknowledges three leadership outcomes: the effectiveness of the leader, the satisfaction of followers with the leader, and the extra effort exerted by the followers (Avolio & Bass, 1991). The relationship of transformational leadership style with these outcomes has been confirmed in previous empirical research in organizational leadership (Avolio & Bass, 1991;Barbuto et al., 2007;Bass, 1999;Bass & Riggio, 2006;Dumdum et al., 2002;Lowe et al., 1996) as well as in leadership studies fulfilled in instructional contexts (Bolkan & Goodboy, 2009;Harrison, 2013, Hoehl, 2008Noland & Richards, 2014;Pounder, 2004Pounder, , 2005Pounder, , 2008aPounder, , 2008bWalumbwa et al., 2004). In his study on classroom leadership styles of Hong Kong university instructors, Pounder (2004Pounder ( , 2008aPounder ( , 2008b investigated the FRL outcomes and obtained results showing significant relationship between all components of transformational leadership and the three outcome variables. Furthermore, he found that contingent reward and active MbE were also positively and significantly associated with the outcomes. Walumbwa et al. (2004) also studied leadership in a tertiary level classroom context and their results indicated a significantly positive transformational leadership-leadership outcomes association. Salinas (2012), who studied teacher leadership in a community college in the USA, focused merely on teacher effectiveness as a classroom leadership outcome and found that it significantly correlated with transformational leadership. In a similar vein, researching FRL in a graduate school classroom setting, Kim (2012) reported higher satisfaction, extra effort and perceived effectiveness for professors' displaying transformational leadership characteristics and also contingent reward dimension of transactional leadership. Investigating instructor leadership styles in virtual learning environments, Bogler et al. (2013) also concluded with results indicating positive correlation with instructors' transformational leadership and students' satisfaction. Similarly, Noland and Richards (2014) found a positive relationship between transformational leadership behaviors of university instructors and student satisfaction and affective learning. With similar intentions, the current study sought to investigate the classroom leadership styles of Turkish instructors of English language and to determine the outcomes of transformational and transactional leadership styles in Turkish EFL classroom contexts.

METHOD
The current article presents one part of the quantitative survey findings of a broader-scope dissertation study. Tertiary level students were presumed to be at a higher level of understanding in their evaluations about language teaching and learning, and since language classrooms were the target setting of the study, the students majoring in English-language-related departments were considered to be the most appropriate population for this study. In the determination of research setting and participants, convenience sampling method was followed in that the particular university and departments where the research data were collected were chosen depending on their accessibility for the researchers. The setting of the research was English Language Teaching (ELT) and English Language and Literature (ELL) Departments of a state university in Turkey.
One specific course had to be determined initially since course content could potentially influence students' perceptions of their instructors (Koh & Tan, 1997;Pounder, 2004Pounder, , 2005. The researchers attempted to find a course that was taught in both departments at more than one grade with the aim of reaching a maximum number of participants due to reliability concerns. The courses given at the bachelor's degree in each semester in the curriculum of the aforementioned departments were examined, and the courses of Writing I at the preparatory classes and Advanced Writing I at the first grade were found to be available in both departments. Eventually, preparatory and first year undergraduate students taking the Writing I and Advanced Writing I courses taught by four different instructors in the fall semester of 2015-2016 academic year were determined as the sample participants of the present study. As Table  1 displays, the main study was conducted in five preparatory classes (one in the ELT department and four in the ELL department) and five first year classes (two in the ELT and three in the ELL department). One of the classes in the ELL department was excluded since it was chosen as the pilot group to test the questionnaire survey. The data were collected using the Classroom Leadership Instrument (CLI) developed by Pounder (2004), a modified form of Bass and Avolio's (2000) Multi-Factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 5X short version, 45 items in total). MLQ (Bass & Avolio, 2000) is recognized as the most commonly acknowledged instrument to survey transformational leadership (Bass & Riggio, 2006) and it is designed to measure the nine dimensions of the FRL model consisting of three leadership styles: transformational, transactional and laissez faire leadership, and the three leadership outcomes: leader effectiveness, follower satisfaction and follower extra effort. The nine dimensions measuring the three leadership styles in the scale are as follows: a) idealized influence (attributed), b) idealized influence (behavior), c) inspirational motivation, d) intellectual stimulation, e) individualized consideration, f) contingent reward, g) active management-by-exception, h) passive management-by-exception, i) laissez-faire leadership. In CLI (Pounder, 2004), MLQ is modified in terms of the wording of the items in order to adapt the statements into an educational setting, and therefore, this version was found more suitable for the current study.
In this study, a correlation analysis was conducted with the aim of testing the construct validity of CLI. As Table 2 presents, the dimensions of CLI significantly correlated with each other (p<.05, p<.01, p<.001). While all transformational components and transactional contingent reward and active MbE were in a positive correlation, passive MbE and laissez-faire leadership were in a negative correlation with all these dimensions. These results are consistent with those of Pounder's (2004) Hong Kong study where CLI was originally used. Regarding the research reliability, Cronbach's Alpha result of the pilot survey was .79. As for the main survey, Cronbach's Alpha and splithalf coefficient values of the CLI were found to be .90 and .82. On receiving the necessary permissions from the copyright holders of the survey and the faculty administrations of the related departments, the researchers handed out and retrieved the questionnaires personally. These were done during the course hours of the selected courses to maximize participation, provide necessary explanations, and ensure that students concentrated on the particular instructor of the selected courses. After the data collection process, the responses were coded and entered into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for analysis. In order to decide whether parametric or nonparametric tests should be used in the analysis, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of normality was conducted, and the results showed that none of the variables in the study had a normal distribution (p<.05) and therefore, nonparametric tests were adopted for inferential analyses.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The correlation between leadership styles and the leadership outcomes of instructor effectiveness, students' extra effort and students' satisfaction were examined through Spearman Brown rank order correlation. Initially, as shown in Table 3, the correlation between the three leadership styles and leadership outcomes was determined. The scale scores for all three leadership styles were found to be in significant correlation with those of the three outcomes (p<.001). The correlation for transformational and transactional leadership styles was positive, whereas laissez-faire leadership correlated negatively with all three outcomes. Taking the correlation coefficients into consideration, it is seen that transformational leadership correlated with instructors' effectiveness (r=.770, p<.001), students' extra effort (r=790, p<.001) and students' satisfaction (r=.722, p<.001) at a higher degree than transactional leadership (r=.532 for effectiveness, r=.481 for extra effort and r=.485 for satisfaction). .000*** .000*** .000*** ***p<.001 As the second analytic step, the correlations between transformational and transactional leadership components and the outcomes of leadership were tested. As presented in Table 4, very significant correlations were observed for all components (p<.001), where correlation coefficients ranged between .455 and .719, except for the least effective dimension of transactional leadership, namely passive management-by-exception which negatively correlated with the three outcomes (r=-.168, r=-.194, r=-.154 for correlations with effectiveness, extra effort and satisfaction, respectively). The highest correlation was observed between inspirational motivation and extra effort (r=.719, p<.001).
Considering the outcome of instructor effectiveness, the components correlating at the highest level were intellectual stimulation (r=.663), inspirational motivation (r=.656) and idealized influence-attributed (r=.646) and individualized consideration (r=.635). Regarding students' extra effort, the highest correlation was with inspirational motivation (Table 4) as mentioned above. Other components correlating highly with this outcome were idealized influence-attributed (r=.690), intellectual stimulation (r=.674) and individualized consideration (r=.642). The outcome of student satisfaction correlated highest with idealized influence-attributed (r=.677), intellectual stimulation (r=.635) and inspirational motivation (r=.607). The findings of the present study which indicated a significantly positive correlation between transformational leadership characteristics and the leadership outcomes of effectiveness, extra effort and satisfaction verified the assertions of leadership research based on the FRL model (Avolio & Bass, 1991;Barbuto et al., 2007;Bass, 1999;Bass & Riggio, 2006;Dumdum et al., 2002;Lowe et al., 1996). In a meta-analysis research on the relationship between transformational-transactional leadership styles and leader effectiveness as an outcome, Lowe et al. (1996) analyzed findings of studies conducted in different types of organizations and concluded that transformational dimensions of the MLQ were highly related to effectiveness. Similarly, in another meta-analysis, Dumdum et al. (2002) found very high average correlations (ranging from .51 to .81) between all of the components of transformational leadership and the measures of follower satisfaction. Besides such studies, findings of the present study were in agreement with research on classroom leadership suggesting significantly positive relationships between leadership styles, transformational leadership in particular, and the three leadership outcomes (Bennett, 2011;Bogler et al., 2013;Kim, 2012;Noland, 2005;Noland & Richards, 2014;Pounder, 2004Pounder, , 2008aPounder, , 2008bSalinas, 2012;Walumbwa et al., 2004).
In the current study, a surprising finding was that transactional leadership, particularly the contingent reward and active management-by-exception components which are referred to as active transactional leadership (Pounder, 2004), also significantly correlated with the leadership outcomes. These findings are meaningful, as they conflict with the FRL notion that transactional components are much less effective and theoretically in much weaker correlation with the leadership outcomes (Bass & Riggio, 2006) although data supporting the current findings are also available in literature (Kim, 2012;Ko, 2006;Lowe et al., 1996;Pounder, 2005). This controversy might be explained with the particular research setting and the course content selected for the present study. It is possible to interpret that active transactional leadership might have different and more affirmative implications for pedagogical discourse when compared to organizational leadership research area. Indeed, from a pedagogical perspective, contingent reward behaviors correspond to positive feedback, which refers to teacher actions of affirmative response to correct answers from students, and it is considered to be important since it provides the learner with the affective support and further increases motivation for learning (Ellis, 2009). Again in pedagogical discourse, active managementby-exception matches corrective feedback, i.e. the response to the linguistic errors of the learner in language education. Though disagreements have also been arisen on what, how, and when to correct errors (Ellis, 2009), it is advocated by many researchers that corrective feedback is important in the development of writing skills (Bitchener & Ferris, 2012;Ellis, 2009;Ferris & Roberts, 2001). All in all, the positive attributions of the students towards active transactional leadership might be explained with the semantic similarities between the aforementioned leadership characteristics and the two feedback types that are suggested to be affiliated with effective teaching in language teaching/learning contexts.

CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study provide some pedagogical implications that can contribute to effective leadership in language classrooms and to broader frameworks of educational leadership, i.e. teacher and instructional leadership. The study revealed that EFL instructors with transformational and active transactional leadership characteristics are more effective classroom leaders and their students feel more satisfied and exert more extra effort in their instructors' courses. Furthermore, relevant literature has suggested that integrating effective leadership, especially transformational leadership, into teaching practices and teacher-student interactions might yield many other significant learning outcomes including instructor performance and student involvement (Beauchamp et al., 2014;Harvey et al., 2003); student learning, empowerment, motivation, and satisfaction (Noland, 2005); learner motivation (Hoehl, 2008;Ko, 2006;Noland & Richards, 2014); students' affective learning (Hoehl, 2008;Noland & Richards, 2014); teacher credibility (Hoehl, 2008); students' cognitive learning, affective learning, state motivation, and communication satisfaction (Bolkan & Goodboy, 2009); effective classroom management and reflective thinking (Khany & Ghoreishi, 2013) and students' satisfaction with course interaction, course structure and teacher support (Lin et al., 2012). It can therefore be suggested that teacher/instructor leadership inside the classroom appears to be among the significant teacher-related variables worth examining in educational contexts including language classrooms.
Additionally, it is noteworthy that leadership literature involves works which assert the teachability of transformational and transactional leadership styles (Bass, 1990;Barling et al., 1996;Harvey et al., 2003;Kelloway & Barling, 2000;Pounder, 2004). As Sherrill (1999) argues, teacher training departments largely neglect arranging programs for in-and pre-service teachers to be classroom leaders although they expect them to meet high expectations of adapting to changing requirements of educational systems. Besides, more specifically, language teacher training programs focus more than required on teaching content knowledge neglecting the fact that the students in these departments are actually learners of teaching, not learners of language (Greenier & Whitehead, 2016). The same problem is observable in English language teacher training programs as well. For instance, much of the focus in the curriculum of these departments in Turkish universities is on teaching language skills, linguistic knowledge and teaching methodologies (Uzun, 2015(Uzun, , 2016. Among the educational courses, only one specific course, classroom management, appears to be related with effective teaching skills but it is still vague whether classroom leadership is addressed as a course content or not. Hence, in-service training of teachers or university instructors about transformational and active transactional classroom leadership styles and about the positive outcomes of being effective classroom leaders might be another pedagogical implication of this study. The training might include helping teachers discover their leadership potentials, and it might also be conducted in teacher training departments of educational faculties.
Classroom leadership in many aspects remains unexplored although it appears to promise data of paramount importance for various research areas related to both leadership and education. The present study has been among the rare studies available to date addressing teacher leadership inside language, EFL in particular, classrooms and currently appears to be a rare study to investigate full range leadership styles of English language instructors and the outcomes of classroom leadership in a Turkish university setting. As one limitation of the present study, teacher and instructor leadership are interchangeably used, however, it might be faulty to generalize the results to classroom leadership behaviors of teachers at primary and secondary schools which are definitely different from university context in various ways with respect to student-teacher relationships, students' and instructors' expectations from each other and from the course, and other demographics of both teachers and students. Therefore, further research with the same scope under different contexts with different participating groups may be conducted in order to reach higher comprehensiveness. The higher amount of data that future research brings will accordingly contribute to the rationale of this study.