From leadership research to district action: The impact of university teachers’ transformational leadership on students’ social–emotional competence: the mediating role of teacher–student relationship and learning engagement with moderated by self-efficacy

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

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Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

In the context of increasing emphasis on holistic student development in higher education, transformational leadership (TL) demonstrated by university faculty has been linked to positive student outcomes, including social–emotional competence (SEC). This study explored the associations between TL and students’ SEC by examining two potential mediating processes—the quality of teacher–student relationships (TSR) and students’ learning engagement (LE)—as well as the moderating role of self-efficacy (SE). Survey data were collected from 659 undergraduates at multiple universities in China. Using structural equation modeling (SEM) and moderated mediation analysis (PROCESS Model 7), the findings revealed that TL positively influenced students’ SEC through two parallel pathways: by strengthening TSR and enhancing LE. Notably, SE significantly moderated the relationship between TL and TSR, such that the indirect effect of TL on SEC via TSR was stronger among students with higher levels of SE. However, the SE-moderated path via LE was not significant. These results highlight the importance of both relational and motivational processes in leadership-informed pedagogy, and underscore how students’ psychological traits such as self-efficacy condition their responsiveness to instructional leadership. Although the cross-sectional design limits causal inference, this study provides initial empirical support for targeted leadership strategies that align with students’ individual resources to foster social–emotional development in higher education.

Study methods

This study employed a quantitative, cross-sectional survey design. A total of 659 college students were recruited from multiple universities across several provinces in China using a randomized cluster sampling approach, ensuring broad representation across different academic disciplines and institutional contexts. Participants were eligible if they were full-time students enrolled at their respective institutions during the period of data collection.

Limitations

While providing valuable insights, the research contains certain limitations requiring acknowledgment. Firstly, due to its cross-sectional design, this research provides correlational rather than causal evidence regarding the relationships among TL, TSR, LE, and social–emotional competence. While structural equation modeling techniques enhance interpretative clarity, future studies employing longitudinal or experimental designs would provide stronger causal validation of these pathways.

A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one school improvement question with teachers. Protect a short shared planning cycle, agree an instructional change and use a common rubric for examining student work. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Review implementation fidelity, teacher time and independently scored student work against a recorded baseline. Examine access differences and competing explanations before attributing changes to leadership. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Lin Lin; Chunying Wang. The impact of university teachers’ transformational leadership on students’ social–emotional competence: the mediating role of teacher–student relationship and learning engagement with moderated by self-efficacy. Frontiers in Psychology (2025-10-23). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1657492

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.