Interaction effect of teacher certification and principal leadership styles towards teacher performance: Empirical evidence of elementary school at Berau district of East Kalimantan province, Indonesia

Abstract

The Indonesian government applies the Law No. 14/2005 to certify schoolteachers in order to improve the quality of education through the certification of teachers for them to be recognized as professional staff. This is achievable if there is a supporting system from the school principal leadership as these two factors may affect the teachers’ performance. Thus, the purpose of this research is to find out the effect of the school principal leadership styles and teacher certification on the teachers’ performance in elementary school at Berau Regency, East Kalimantan Province. The sample of this research was formed from 23 out of 151 elementary schools in Berau Regency which is 160 teachers. The research was conducted using a quantitative approach of a comparative method (ex post facto) with 2 x 2 factorial designs. The data were collected with questionnaires and analyzed with two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). The findings revealed that there is a significant differences between; performance of the certified and uncertified teachers; the teacher performance of the democratic leadership style and the authoritarian one; the performance of the certified and uncertified teachers of the authoritarian leadership style; the performance of the certified and uncertified teachers of the democratic leadership style; and an interaction effect of the leadership styles and the teacher certification towards the teachers’ performance. Ultimately, teachers’ performance is influenced by the competence and leadership style of the organizational leader.