The effects of transformational leadership of principals on student academic achievement

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of Transformational Leadership on student achievement. The main research question focused on the relationship between Transformational Leadership practices of principals and student academic achievement. This study also attempted to determine if the Transformational practices of principals differ between low performing schools and high performing schools as well as identify other factors that may affect the performance of students. The study relied upon Transformational Leadership as its theoretical framework. This researcher used the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) to measure the leadership practices of 154 middle and high school principals in California. The results of multiple regressions suggest that Transformational Leadership has no significant impact on student academic achievement. The results of the independent samples t-tests suggest there are no significant differences regarding the perceived application of effective Transformational Leadership practices between principals of high performing schools and principals of low performing schools in terms of the Academic Performance Index (API). The results suggest that Transformational Leadership has no significant impact on student academic achievement as measured by the Similar Schools Decile Ranking, API, and the percentage of students who pass the CAHSEE exams in mathematics and ELA