Empowering teachers for teaching innovation: roles of change leadership, AI self-Efficacy, and innovative school climate

This study examined the relationships between change leadership and teachers’ teaching innovation, considering the mediating roles of innovative school climate and teachers’ AI self-efficacy. Grounded in the transformational leadership and social cognitive theories, the study employed a cross-sectional quantitative design using data collected from public school teachers in Oman. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to estimate the structural relationships among change leadership, innovative school climate, AI self-efficacy, and teaching innovation. The results indicated that change leadership had a significant direct effect on teachers’ teaching innovation and positively influenced innovative school climate and AI self-efficacy. Both mediators significantly predicted teaching innovation, with bootstrapping confirming their parallel indirect effects. However, neither the sequential mediation pathway nor the direct relationship between innovative school climate and AI self-efficacy was statistically significant. These findings have important implications for policymakers, school leaders, and teacher professional development programs, emphasising the need to foster both organisational conditions for innovation and teachers’ individual competencies related to AI integration.