| The purpose of this study is to analyze quantitative data from students of different ages and gender regarding how they perceive their physical education teacher's use of leadership styles. The first portion of data was collected using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), the other portion correlated students' goal orientations as measured by the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ). This study investigated the relationship among transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and non-leadership styles of physical education teachers collected from two age categories: freshmen at senior high schools and freshmen at universities or colleges. Data were also gathered based on gender. Ten schools from Taichung City, Taiwan participated in this study, five universities or colleges and five senior high schools. The participation rate for the older female group was 35 percent (270 persons), older male group was 16 percent (128 persons), younger female group was 30 percent (235 persons), and younger male group was 19 percent (144 persons). The findings of this study are as follows: transformational leadership is the most powerful leadership style for students' perceptions, regardless of age, gender, and goal orientation. Age and gender are the impact factors for teachers' leadership styles. Students' goal orientations are also the impact factors for teachers' transformational leadership and nonleadership styles. The predictors, age, gender, and goal orientation, are not the main factors to predict teachers' leadership style. High task orientation may be the key point that cannot be ignored when choosing transformational leadership behavior. Those who already are physical education teachers, those who wish to be physical education teachers, and those who hope to train to become physical education teachers, should value the role of leadership and be a competent teacher for every different ages, genders, and goal orientation students. |
