1. How teacher’s organization commitment works as a mediator in the context of the study? What is the problem of TOC? Elaborate more and add evidence to support.

2. Your problem statement is not justified. You didn’t highlight what are the real problem that Pakistan Education faced especially in the teacher’s organizational commitment, instructional leadership, and teacher self-efficacy.

3. What is the research gap for this study? What is the difference between this study with previous study?

4. What is the theoretical gap? Need to show theoretical gap which means that no publish theory has addressed the research-concerned area, and the research gap as well on which question or problem that has not been answered by any of the existing studies or research within this field of study

1.1 Problem Statement

Primary education is a crucial stage for producing good quality citizens because education forms the core of the education system. Therefore, the Ministry of Education Pakistan has drawn some objectives for primary education, for example, to foster students’ personal development, preparation for the examination and international test, social capital and cultural thought; religious and moral contribution to the society and country (Zirkel & DuPaul, 2017). At the primary level, student’s academic performance has long been the interest of researchers in numerous jurisdictions to moderate the obstinate discrepancies in educational accomplishments among numerous social, cultural, racial groups around different parts of the world (Reardon, 2016; Pokropek et al., 2015).
A survey result conducted in 2016 by the government of Pakistan reflected low levels of students’ academic performance in primary schools of Pakistan. Assessments of Grade IV students conducted in 127 districts of the country showed that in Language test 24%, mathematics 19 %, Science 33%, and social studies test 43% students scored more significant than the scaled mean score respectively (Zirkel & Dupaul, 2017). Also, a national achievement test conducted at the national level (2014) disclosed that 79% of students in Science acquired scaled mean scores lower than the mean of 500, and just 21% of students cut across the mean score of 500. Another survey result likewise unfurled a decline in the attainments of students over the years. Students’ performance in Science dropped from 467 to 433 in between 2006 to 2014. In the same way, achievement in English (writing) and the rest of the subjects overall presented an alarming level that emphasized the requirement of urgent remedial actions (Shah et al., 2018).

Many researchers concluded the excellence of school principals as a significant part to improved school and students’ academic performance (Hallinger & Chen, 2015; Allen, Grigsby & Peters, 2015). Furthermore, one of the leadership style that has garnered interest in the principal job and its different dimensions to improve students’ academic performance is instructional leadership (DiPaola & Hoy, 2015). Instructional leadership investigators agree that instruction and students’ academic performances are the core of instructional leadership (Boyce & Bowers, 2018). Through principal instructional leadership teaching quality and teacher organizational commitment can also be marginally increased in all kind of institutions (Hallinger et al., 2018).

Researchers also indicated that teachers exhibiting greater self-efficacy are inclined to link and develop higher students’ academic performances (Taştan et al., 2018; Zee & Koomen, 2016). Substantial evidences have currently accumulated related to the impacts of positive efficacy beliefs on the part of teachers such as higher job performance, enhanced attendance, and better students’ academic performance (Taştan et al., 2018; Mojavezi & Tamiz, 2012).

Existing studies regarding the relationship between instructional leadership, teachers’ efficacy and students’ academic performance show inconsistent results. For instance Mestry’s study (2017), highlighted the direct effect of principal instructional leadership on students’ academic performance in South Africa. While studies by Robinson et al. (2017) found that the students’ academic performance is indirectly assisted by principal instructional leadership. Liu & Hallinger (2018) concluded that based on their reviews of literature and past empirical researches, there are mixed findings on the relationship between instructional leadership of principals, teachers’ efficacy and students’ academic performance. Therefore, more studies are needed in order to arrive at a more conclusive findings in terms of the relationship between instructional leadership, teachers’ efficacy and students’ academic performance

In addition as found out by Liu & Hallinger (2018) and Robinson et al. (2017), instructional leadership and teacher efficacy were indirectly related to students’ academic performance. They also suggested the need of mediating variable to be used in the relationship to students’ academic performance. Therefore teachers’ organizational commitment is proposed as mediating variable in this study. Teacher organizational commitment is regarded as the key factor and can be exhibited in the teachers’ teaching, dedication to improving students’ academic performances (Taştan et al., 2018). However studies that employed teachers’ organizational commitment as mediator between the relationship of school leadership and students’ academic performance are in general still limited.

Evidence shows that organizational commitment theories and models has been applied mostly into public and social organizations other than educational organizations (Al-Jabari, & Ghazzawi, 2019: Berberoglu, 2018). Moreover the theoretical understanding in the teachers’ organizational commitment research is still lacking because past studies have mostly focused on describing the types, strengths, structures, and technical aspects of teachers organizational commitment and not much on the outcomes (Al-Jabari, & Ghazzawi, 2019: Berberoglu, 2018). Therefore this study will bridge the gap by clarifying students’ academic performance as an outcome of the interactions among the variables. Despite the widespread evidence about instructional leadership models, the knowledge basis in certain countries is still developing and particularly in many growing countries, accessible literature on instructional leadership practices is still very limited. Also, instructional leadership is usually culture specific (Harris et al., 2019; Hallinger et al., 2018). Maximum teachers’ self-efficacy research studies have experimented with the school population of the United States and western countries. Supplementary investigations from a different culture will increase our conception of the process and generalizability of self-efficacy theory (Hallinger et al., 2018; Fackler & Malmberg, 2016).

Based on the reviews, existing literature regarding the association between under discussion variables is still scanty and inconclusive. Thus, this study proposes an explanation related to mediating effects of teachers’ organizational commitment, the commanding variable that has not earlier perceived as a source of indirect instructional leadership, and teachers’ self-efficacy effect on students’ academic performance based on Pakistani context.