Making "magic": An exploration of the relationship between teacher leadership and boys' academic motivation in the year 8 classroom at a Catholic school

This research explored the understandings and perceptions of teacher leadership in the Year 8 classroom, as expressed by teachers and students at a Catholic school, and the relationship between this leadership and boys' academic motivation. The researcher assumed that the classroom is an organisation (Cheng, 1994) where all teachers, perhaps even unknowingly (Crowther, 1996), exercise leadership and, furthermore, that this leadership results in positively influencing boys' willingness to learn. The research was targeted at Year 8, the first year of high school in South Australia, because academic motivation is considered most problematic during and after transition into high school (Maehr & Midgley, 1991).