The main aim of the present research is to identify the relationship between instructional leadership practices of school middle leaders consisting of the Senior Assistant for Curriculum and Senior Subject Teachers, and the school climate, job attitude and teacher organizational commitment in national type secondary schools. Four hundred teachers from the national type secondary schools were selected as respondents through purposive sampling in two northern states in Peninsular Malaysia. The study also aims to understand the application of a structural equation model in order to confirm the relationship between the practices of the middle leaders’ instructional leadership and school climate, teacher’s job attitude and organizational commitment in high, average and low achieving schools. A Likert-scale questionnaire comprising four instruments namely: Principal Instruction Management, Rating Scale (PIMRS, 1985), Organizational Health Inventory (OHI-M, 1997), Job Involvement (JIQ, 1982) and Organisational Commitment (OCQ, 2007) was used. Data was collected and analysed using SPSS and AMOS, to compare the interrelation-
ship among the variables under study at the three levels of school. Overall, the results lend support to the reliability and validity of the translated questionnaire. Descriptive analysis was used to obtain the mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentages. Additionally, a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) were also utilized. The findings showed that there were significant relationships between the instructional practices of the middle leaders with school climate, job attitude and organizational commitment. It was also found that the instructional practices of the middle leaders were not influenced by the school achievement. Results from the structural equation model showed that the job attitude and organizational commitment had an indirect relationship with the practice of instilling a positive learning environment and the evaluation of the teaching program. The school climate was found to be a significant variable which determined the teaching and learning process in schools. The findings provided a basis for establishing a school leadership model to develop teacher professionalism and for teacher productivity values as well as school performance. Based on these findings, implications and suggestions for further research and practices were also discussed
