Journal of Research in Educational Systems

Abstract Objective: The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of psychological empowerment on academic self-concept of students with low academic performance.
Method: The research method was a quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test with a control group. The statistical population of this study included all female students with low academic performance in the second high school in Ardabil in the academic year 2024-2025. For this purpose, 30 female students with low academic performance were selected using purposive sampling according to the study entry criteria and randomly assigned to two experimental groups (15 people) and control group (15 people). After pre-testing with the Liu and Wang (2005) Academic Self-Concept Questionnaire the experimental group received 8 sessions (2 sessions per week) of 60 minutes of the Thomas and Velthouse (1990) psychological empowerment training program, and the control group continued with their normal routine. The data were analyzed using the univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) method in SPSS.26 software.
Results: The findings showed that there was a significant difference between the mean academic self-concept (P<0.05, F=4.84, ηp2=0.152) of the experimental and control groups in the post-test. Thus, after implementing psychological empowerment training, the mean scores of students with low academic performance in the experimental group increased significantly compared to the control group.
Conclusions: As a result, by training psychological empowerment in students, the level of academic self-concept can be increased in them. With the help of psychological empowerment strategies, students can re-examine and review their numerous failures, and ultimately, the academic performance of students improves.

Abstract Objective: Educational organizations of our country, especially schools, in order to deal with the many issues and problems they face in today's changing conditions are in urging need of principals and teachers who are creative and up-to-date and show this creativity in their job performance. Considering the importance and necessity of the creative performance of teachers and principals, the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between digital leadership and creative performance through psychological empowerment of teachers. Methods: The research method was quantitative, descriptive and correlational. Thirty hundred and ten teachers were selected from 1,610 elementary school teachers in the 5th district of Tehran, Iran by simple random sampling based on Cochran's formula in 2023-2024 academic year. The participants completed the Digital Leadership Questionnaire (Ulutas & Arsalan, 2017), the Psychological Empowerment Questionnaire (Spreitzer, 1995) and the Creative Performance Questionnaire (Oldham & Cummings, 1996). Results: Data were analyzed using the structural equation modeling by SPSS and LISREL softwares. The results indicated that digital leadership had a direct, positive and significant effect on the creative performance and psychological empowerment, psychological empowerment had a direct, positive and significant effect on teachers' creative performance, and digital leadership had an indirect, positive and significant effect on the creative performance through the psychological empowerment. Conclusion: Finally, in order to respond appropriately to the innovative changes and advances of the digital-oriented environment, educational organizations and schools should use the digital leadership style to eliminate teachers’ stress about possible mistakes in expressing ideas and new opinions, and thus increase the creative performance of teachers.