This study empirically investigated whether the high degrees of fitness in transformational leadership of the English teacher increases the level of the students’ satisfaction and credibility about their English teachers. The levels of students’ satisfaction and credibility were specified according to the level of the English self-efficacy of students.
A survey was conducted. Both first and second grade high school students from the seven different districts of the Daegu metropolitan city were the subjects of the study. The survey took twenty-two days (from July 5th to July 26th), and 219 responses were collected, marking the recovery rate at 56.1%. The study employed cluster analysis to analyze the levels of the fitness between the students’ English self-efficacy and the transformational leadership of an English teacher.
First, the results of the study show that when both the degrees of the English self-efficacy and dimensions (i.e., consideration and influence, inspirational motivation, and intellectual stimulation) of the transformational leadership was highly actualized, the levels of the students’satisfaction and credibility about their English teachers are high. However, with high degrees of the English self-efficacy, the low-level actualization of the dimensions of transformational leadership may lead to students’ relatively low satisfaction and perception of credibility about their English teachers. Furthermore, the results show that the levels of the dimensions in transformational leadership must be high when students have low English self-efficacy. In addition, with the low English self-efficacy students, the degrees of the students’satisfaction and credibility about their teacher was relatively high only when the realization of consideration and influence as well as inspirational motivation is higher than that of intellectual stimulation.
The study tried to identify which specific dimensions of transformational leadership are relatively more important than other dimensions in case of improving students’ satisfaction and credibility about their English teachers. The target students were divided into seven groups, according to their level of English self-efficacy, in order to identify relative importance of each dimension of transformational leadership for improving each group’s level of satisfaction and credibility. As the conclusion of the study shows, all dimensions must be exerted in high degree to improve the level of satisfaction and credibility. However, with the low English self-efficacy students, the degrees of the students’satisfaction and credibility about their teacher is relatively high only when the realization of consideration and influence as well as inspirational motivation is higher than that of intellectual stimulation.