Learning Community as a Dominant Predictor of Teacher Performance: The Role of Principal Transformational Leadership and Academic Supervision

Abstract

Educational management transformation requires improving teacher performance through effective school leadership, professional collaboration, and continuous academic supervision. However, learning quality in public junior high schools in Bumiayu District, Brebes Regency, remains uneven despite the implementation of academic supervision and learning communities. This study examines the effects of transformational school leadership, learning communities, and academic supervision on teacher performance and identifies the most dominant factor. A quantitative approach with an associative ex post facto design was employed. The sample consisted of 132 teachers from public junior high schools in Bumiayu District, selected through saturated sampling. Data were collected using a validated and reliable Likert-scale questionnaire and analyzed through prerequisite tests, simple and multiple regression, t-tests, and an F-test. The results show that transformational leadership significantly affects teacher performance, contributing 20.3%, while academic supervision contributes 27.3%. Learning communities have the strongest effect, with a correlation coefficient of 0.851 and a coefficient of determination of 72.4%, remaining significant in the multiple regression model. Simultaneously, the three variables significantly affect teacher performance, explaining 72.5% of its variance. These findings highlight learning communities as a strategic priority for improving teacher performance