Teacher trust in others and teacher commitment co-mediate the path from school leadership to students’ reading literacy in rural Chinese schools

This study aimed to understand how teacher trust in others (TTO) and teacher commitment (TC) co-mediate the path from school leadership (SL) to students’ reading literacy (RL). Altogether 1,223 Grade 8 students (female =647; male = 576, M(age) = 15.35, SD = 1.28) and their 34 principals from 34 secondary schools in rural western China were sampled and matched. All the students completed the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA 2008) reading tests, and their principals completed the Leading and Teaching in Schools Survey Scale online which the variables of SL, TTO, and TC were evaluated. In addition, the “many to many” step was employed to match principals’ data with the students’ data by STATA analysis. The results indicated that: (1) there were direct and indirect effects of SL on student RL in the mediation model; (2) the serial mediation of TTO and TC was significant between SL and RL. This finding implies that enhancing TTO and TC in rural schools will help improve student’s RL.