SCHOOL PRINCIPALS ’ TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP STYLES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON TEACHERS ’ SELF-EFFICACY

Prof. Christopher DC. Francisco. City of Malolos Integrated School – Sto. Rosario, Sto. Rosario, City of Malolos, Bulacan. ...................................................................................................................... Manuscript Info Abstract ......................... ........................................................................ Manuscript History Received: 12 August 2019 Final Accepted: 14 September 2019 Published: October 2019


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A teacher's efficacy belief is a judgment of his or her capabilities to bring about desired outcomes of student engagement and learning, even among those students who may be difficult or unmotivated Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001). Efficacy beliefs could influence teachers' persistence when things do not go smoothly and their resilience in the face of setbacks. In this sense, teachers' self-efficacy is about teachers' belief about how much can they do towards a situation especially when their presence is needed. The concept of self-efficacy was coined by Bandura (1994) when he said that self-efficacy is the belief in one's ability to influence events that affect one's life and control over the way these events are experienced. This means to say that self-efficacy can be a recipe for teacher's success on his or her teaching career.
The study draws academic support from Damanik's (2014) proposition that useful transformational leadership behavior of school principals is a significant factor in improving school climate and teachers' self-efficacy. The strategic development programs of school principals provide multiple opportunities for developing teachers' wellbeing as well as their emotional and intellectual attachment to the school as a workplace. Teachers' self-efficacy influences attitudes towards sound integration and this happen when the school principals actively interact with their teachers in planning, decision-making and other school-related development agenda. In this view, it was hypothesized in the study that school principals' transformational leadership styles would have a strong influence on the development of teachers' self-efficacy.
Principal's leadership scales influenced teachers' self-efficacy either directly or indirectly especially the components of principals' leadership behaviors and teachers' sense of self-efficacy (Damanik, 2014: Kirk, 2016: Mehdinezhad, 2016. Hence, this view provides opportunities for principals to plan, and to put into practice, effective transformational leadership behaviors aimed at improving the school climate and teachers' self-efficacyboth of which are strongly linked to successful school improvement. Moreover, Gallante (2015) showed quantitative findings that indicate significant relationships between instructional leadership with teacher engagement and conflict with teacher engagement. This means that the themes, based on the integrated model of teacher efficacy, revealed connections with the principal and support, guidance, and structure provided by the principal. At some other researches, there was evidence of significant direct relationships between; principals' technology leadership and teachers' self-efficacy (Siong, 2012: Helber, 2015. Evangelista (2014) mentioned the leader's ability to provide intellectual stimulation had the highest influence on teacher self-efficacy. According to Kass (2013), the human aspect of teacher-principal relations is the decisive factor determining those teachers' sense of professional self-efficacy. For Virga, (2012) and Simmons (2013), they found that the district's multiyear leadership development program provided multiple opportunities for developing principals to build their self-efficacy beliefs. The collective instructional leadership model helps raise both individual and cooperative teacher efficacy within schools (Lee, 2015: Ozer 2013, Luft 2012. Hence, teacher efficacy played a central role in the relationships, mediating all of the positive effects of context beliefs and a vast majority of the impact of transformational leadership behavior as mentioned in Boberg (2013) and Neuss (2016). Hence, principals' transformational, transactional and Laissez-faire leadership styles had the power to predict the collective teacher efficacy at a significant level (Akan, 2013). There was a relationship regarding attitudes towards inclusion and mainstreaming experience between the school principal and the teaching staff. Teacher self-efficacy significantly influenced attitudes toward social integration (Karolina, 2014). Some preferred aspects of principal leadership and collaborative teacher practices significantly predict teachers' self-efficacy and job satisfaction at within and across schools (Duyar et al., 2013).
However, no significant relationship exists between high school principals' leadership styles and teacher selfefficacy according to Kaminski's (2013) study. All teachers rated their sense of self-efficacy to be relatively high to high, and with no data available to compare relatively low to low scores and principals' leadership style. The data regarding the existence of a relationship between the variables was inconclusive, and the null hypothesis was accepted. Richard (2013) also mentioned no significant differences between teacher descriptions of important leadership behaviors and teacher descriptions of self-efficacy in either high or low performing schools, although frequency analysis yielded substantial findings between the two groups. Short, (2016) in his study revealed that for the variables of self-efficacy in student engagement and classroom management, there was not a statistically significant relationship with any of the transformational leadership practices.
With these gaps found in related studies embarking school principals' leadership styles and teachers' self-efficacy, the researcher purports to evaluate the leadership styles of the school principals and their effects on teachers' self-624 efficacy in another research environment in the public schools in the Division of Bulacan. Specifically, this seeks to answer the following objectives: (1) To describe the school principals' transformational leadership styles in terms of idealized influence; inspirational motivation; intellectual stimulation; individual consideration; contingent reward; management-by-exception; laissez-faire leadership; extra effort; effectiveness; satisfaction. (2) To determine the level of teachers' self-efficacy in terms of pupil engagement; instructional strategies; and classroom management.
(3) To identify which among the school principals' transformational leadership styles significantly affect teachers' self-efficacy. (4) To present management implications which may be drawn from the findings of the study to further improve school principals' transformational leadership styles and teachers' self-efficacy.

Methodology:-
This study utilized the descriptive-correlational method of research since this method is concerned with the description of the independent and dependent variables. According to Asuero et al. (2006), a correlational research design comprises collecting data to determine whether, and to what extent, a relationship exists between two or more variables.
Guided by the slovin's formula, the respondents of the study consisted of 5 public high school principals and 260 high school teachers for the school year 2018-2019. For confidentiality purposes, the researcher chose not to indicate the name of the secondary school in the District of Plaridel. School A consisted 54 total number of teachers. School B consisted of 45 teachers. School C included 74 population. School D has 58 teachers, and School E has 29 teachers. To get the overall impact of this research, the researcher got the total population (260) of the respondents as the sample size (260) of the study.
To gather necessary information for this study, the researcher used the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) Form 5X by Bass and Avolio to describe the transformational leadership styles of school principals while the Teacher's Self-Efficacy Scale 1 (long form) by Megan Tschanmen-Moran and Mary Anita Woolfolk Hoy was used to describe teachers' self-efficacy.
The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire Form 5X measured leadership on ten (10) factors related to transformational leadership. There were 45 questions which required to gather responses of teachers which determined their school principals' transformational leadership styles based on the factors namely, (1) Idealized influence, (2) Inspirational Motivation, (3) Intellectual Stimulation, (4) Individual Consideration, (5) Contingent Reward, (6) Management-by-Exception, (7) Laissez-faire Leadership, (8) Extra Effort, (9) Effectiveness and (10) Satisfaction. This questionnaire is highly reliable as evidenced by the Cronbach's alpha of .91. The Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale 1, however, consists of three (3) parts. There were 24 questions which sought to gather responses on teachers' self-efficacy in terms of (1) Students Engagement, (2) Instructional Strategies, and (3) Classroom Management. This questionnaire is also highly reliable as shown by the Cronbach's alpha of .89.
In gathering the data, the researcher followed the following procedures: (1) A letter was sent to the Schools Division Superintendent of SDO-Bulacan, to the District Supervisor of Plaridel, and to the District of Plaridel School Principals to ask permission to conduct the study. (2) With the approval of the Schools Division Superintendent of SDO-Bulacan, the District Supervisor of Plaridel and the District of Plaridel School Principals, the researcher then distributed the questionnaires to the respondents personally. (3) The researcher collected the questionnaires from the respondents and checked whether all questions were answered.
The data were tabulated and processed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS). To analyze and interpret the data gathered, the leadership styles of school principals and self-efficacy of teachers were quantified using mean scores scale. To determine the effects of school principals' transformational leadership styles on teachers' self-efficacy, multiple correlation and regression analysis were utilized.

Results:-Problem 1: School Principals' Transformational Leadership Styles in the District of Plaridel
Transformational leadership plays a pivotal role in promoting and managing school development by influencing teachers' efficacy. Besides, principals were very much influential to the efficacy of teachers that they could not alienate themselves to isolation. According to Sharma and Singh (2017), transformational leadership styles of school principals lead to favorable changes in those who follow. In an educational system, school principals put maximum 625 efforts to increase the level of their teachers' awareness for valued outcomes by expanding and elevating their needs and encouraging them to transcend their self-interests.
Transformational leadership styles were assessed in terms of idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individual consideration, contingent reward, management-by-exception (active and passive), laissez-faire leadership, extra effort, effectiveness, and satisfaction.
Leadership Style in terms of Idealized Influence. It may be gleaned in Table 1 that the leadership style in terms of idealized influence was satisfactory as shown by the average score of 3.28. This leadership was displayed in the following behaviors of principals when they talk about their most important values and beliefs (3.12), instill pride (3.13), specify the importance of having a strong sense of purpose (3.28), go beyond self-interest for the good of the group (3.12), acts in ways that build others for respect for me (3.34), consider the moral and ethical consequences of decisions (3.43), display a sense of power and confidence (3.39), emphasize the importance of having a collective sense of mission (3.4).

.28 Satisfactory
This result was supported by Sharma and Singh (2017) when they claim that the transformational leader can make employees work together, trust each other, promote employee motivation and then produce the work result exceeding expectation through idealized influence with common worth orientation. This means to say that if leaders are very much equipped in terms of carrying out the values of being an ideal leader, then their followers would honestly and faithfully follow according to the command responsibility given to them. Table 2 that the leadership style in terms inspirational motivation was very satisfactory as shown by the average score of 3.5. This leadership was manifested when principals talk optimistically about the future (3.52), talk enthusiastically about what needs to be accomplished (3.47), articulate a compelling vision of the future (3.35), express confidence that goals will be achieved (3.65). seek differing perspectives when solving problems (3.09), look at problems from many angles (3.23), and suggest new ways of looking at how to complete assignments (3.27). Evangelista (2014) mentioned that the leaders' ability to provide intellectual stimulation had the highest influence on teacher self-efficacy. It is essential that leaders influence their follower by means of delivering them avenues to think critically of difficult situations and be an example of critical thinking especially in times when the management is at risk. Table 4 would reveal that the leadership style of principals in terms of individual consideration was satisfactory as shown by the average score of 3.24. It was manifested through the effort of the principals to spend time in teaching and coaching (3.18), treat others as individuals with different needs, abilities, and aspirations from others (3.32), and help others to develop their strengths (3.32). According to Ogola, et al. (2017), the individual consideration offered to every subordinate by the leaders tends to increase the effectiveness and satisfaction level of employees. Leaders with personal consideration qualities encouraged communication in the organization as an essential mechanism that leads to an organization functioning as planned.

Leadership Style in terms of Individual Consideration. Analysis of the data in
Leadership Style in terms of Contingent Reward. The data in Table 5 revealed that the transformational leadership of principals in terms of contingent reward was very satisfactory as shown by the average score of 3.51. This leadership was being able to provide assistance in exchange for the efforts of their subordinates (3.44), discuss in specific terms who is responsible for achieving performance targets (3.63), make clear what one can expect to receive when performance goals are achieved (3.35), and express satisfaction when they meet expectations ( 3.61). Leadership in contingent reward entails clarification of roles and requirements from leaders to followers, and at the same time offers rewards contingent to the completion of obligations (Hoxha and Hyseni-Duraku 2017). In this sense, teachers do believe that their principals do not only support their needs emotionally and professionally. They were also in return rewarded to increase productivity and their morale. But one cannot deny that nothing is nobler when someone does his/her job faithfully without expecting anything material.
Leadership Styles in terms of Management-by-Exception (Passive and Active). The data in Table 6 revealed that the leadership style of principals in terms of passive management-by-exception was satisfactory as shown by the average score of 2.78. This leadership was demonstrated by the following behavior of principals, to wit: fail to interfere until problems become serious (2.81), wait for things to go wrong before taking action (2.58), show that they believe in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" (2.93), demonstrate that problems must become chronic before they take action (2.79).

Average 2.78 Satisfactory
This means that school principals cannot be able to supervise all activities in the organization. Hence, they concentrate their energies on the most critical issues, and not to devote most of the time to search for situations that have different results than planned or predicted and leave the routine work to the staff as long as it is according to standards, without any deviation.
Meanwhile, it may be gleaned in Table 7

.17 Satisfactory
This means that school principals have the power over important decisions, which can be demotivating for employees at a lower level. Teachers who deviate from the standard procedures because of compliance failures are considered difficult to manage and typically find themselves with limited job duties and ultimately abandoned.
In the study conducted by Hoxha and Hyseni-Duraku (2017), the leadership style in terms of active management-byexception was significantly associated with attributes of self-efficacy, whereas passive management-by-exception was the leadership trait that was correlated negatively with self-efficacy. Table 9 would show that the laissez-faire leadership style of principal was satisfactory with an average score of 2.7. This means that principals avoid getting 628 involve when essential issues arise (2.72), absent when needed (2.68), avoid making decisions (2.78), and delay responding to urgent questions (2.64). According to Chaudhry and Javed (2012), laissez-faire leadership means being uninvolved in the work of the unit. It is difficult to defend this type of leadership unless the subordinates of leaders are expert and well-motivated specialists and are independent individuals. In short, principals in this sense let their group members make decisions for themselves. Table 9 that the leadership style of principals in terms of extra-effort got a satisfactory rating with an average score of 3.34. It means to say that principals get others to do more than they expected to do (3.28), heightens others' desire to succeed (3.39), increase others' desire to try harder (3.36). It may be inferred from the findings that the principals likewise exert extra effort to motivate teachers to work hard to achieve their goals. Leadership Styles in terms of Effectiveness. In Table 10, the leadership style of principals in terms of effectiveness would show a very satisfactory rating with an average score of 3.51. This was specified by their ability to be effective in meeting others' job related needs (3.52), in representing others to the higher authority (3.41), in meeting organizational requirements (3.53), in leading a group that is effective (3.59).

Leadership Style in terms of Extra-Effort. It was shown in
This means that for a school principal to become an effective leader, they must begin with the development of a school-wide vision of commitment to high standards and the success of all students. In other words, the school principals need to spell out the image and strategize how to get there.  Table 11 that teachers agreed that their principals are capable of using methods of leadership that are satisfying with a very satisfactory rating or mean score of 3.51. Teachers also agreed that their principals work satisfactorily as shown by the mean score of 3.52 utilizing an effective method of leadership (3.50).

Very Satisfactory
The findings indicate that the teachers believe that their school principals possess a high quality of leadership in terms of using innovative strategies for the attainment of their organizational goals and performing well for the benefit of the school-wide projects and programs.
Problem 2: Level of Teachers' Self-Efficacy Boberg (2013) purported that teachers' self-efficacy plays a central role in organizational relationships, mediating all of the positive effects of context beliefs and a vast majority of the effects of transformational leadership behaviors Hosseingholizadeh et al., (2017) have supported this argument by confirming in their study the conceptual model affirming the impact of both principal and teacher beliefs (i.e., self-efficacy) on their behaviors and on teacher commitment. The authors emphasized the importance of highlighting and valuing teacher's self-efficacy because principals had strong feelings that behaviors of teachers impact on the self-efficacy.
Tables 12-14 show the level of teachers' self-efficacy in terms of student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management.
Accordingly, the data in Table 12 under teachers' self-efficacy in terms of student engagement revealed that teachers ensure that they get through to the most challenging students (7.22), help the students to think critically (7.12), motivate students who show low interest in school works (7.29), get students to believe that they can do well in school work (7.42), help their students value learning (7.58), foster student creativity (7.3), improve the understanding of the students who are failing (7.35), and assist families in helping their children to do well in school (7.4). As a whole, high level of teachers' self-efficacy was observed in terms of student-engagement as shown by the mean value of 7.34.
In terms of instructional strategies, high level of teachers' self-efficacy was noted as shown by the obtained mean value of 7.39. Eight indicators were highly observed: respond to difficult questions from their students (7.39), gauge students' comprehension of what they have taught (7.32), craft right questions for your students (7.24), adjust their lesson to the proper level for individual students (7.46), use a variety of assessment strategies (7.36), provide an alternative explanation or example when students are confused (7.58), implement alternative approaches in their classroom (7.43), and offer appropriate challenges to much capable students (7.39). Analysis of the data presented in Table 14 revealed that teachers' self-efficacy in terms of classroom management was perceived to be "high" (7.45) through eight different indicators namely: teachers control disruptive behavior in the classroom (7.38), make their expectation clear about their students' behavior (7.35), establish routines to keep activities running smoothly (7.32), get children to follow classroom rules (7.44), calm student who is disruptive or noisy (7.64), establish a classroom management system with each group of students (7.68), keep a few problem students from ruining an entire lesson (7.47), and be able to respond to defiant students (7.35).

Problem 3: Effects of School Principals' Transformational Leadership Styles on Teachers Self-Efficacy
In this study, it was hypothesized that school principals' transformational leadership styles do not significantly affect teachers' self-efficacy. To determine the extent of effects of the transformational leadership styles of school principals on self-efficacy of teachers, the data were subjected to multiple correlations and regression analysis, and the data gathered were summarized in Table 15. Results of the regression analysis indicate that all eleven variables of the transformational leadership styles of school principals affect teachers' self-efficacy to a different extent as shown by the non-zero coefficients. A closer look at the obtained B coefficients, one could deduce that two variables yielded B coefficients of 0.08 (effectiveness) and 0.06 (contingent reward) with associated probability less than the significance level set at 0.05. This means that effectiveness and contingent reward significantly affect teachers' self-efficacy that for every unit improvement in effectiveness and contingent reward, teachers' self-efficacy can be expected to increase by 0.08 and 0.06 respectively. The rest of the variables also affect the teachers' self-efficacy but not to a significant extent.
Analysis of the sustained Beta coefficients would reveal that of the eleven variables of transformational leadership styles of school principals, effectiveness and contingent reward appeared to be the best predictors of teachers' selfefficacy.
Results of the analysis of variance of the regression of school principals' transformational leadership styles on teachers' self-efficacy revealed an F-value of 1.643 with a p-value of 0.088. Since the associated probability of the obtained F-value is higher than alpha (0.05), the null hypothesis has to be sustained. This means that the eleven (11) transformational leadership styles do not exert significant combined effects on teachers' self-efficacy.

Problem 4: Management Implications Drawn from the Findings of the Study
The following are some significant management implications drawn from the findings of the study: 1. School principals are challenged to exercise more active involvement and participation in planning and implementing school activities as well as in decision making and in responding to urgent demands. 2. School principals are also challenged to tap their teachers in building their confidence, inspiring them, including them in decision-making processes, and in deepening principal-teacher relations through coaching and proper mentoring. 3. School principals need to enhance the clarification of roles and requirements from leaders to followers as well as the offering of rewards contingent to completion of work assignments and obligations. Doing these would result to increase the productivity of teachers. 4. Leadership effectiveness directly translates to the accomplishments of organizational goals and objectives. In this vein, enhancing the principals' competencies in doing strategic planning unit for a long way may define clearly the vision-mission statement of the school and effectively strategizing on how to get there.

Conclusions:-
Based from the findings of the study, the following conclusions were drawn: 1.
The transformation leadership styles of school principals were generally satisfactory. The higher level of assessment was noted on inspirational motivation, contingent reward, effectiveness, and satisfaction.

2.
Teachers' level of self-efficacy was manifested at the high level in terms of student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management -indicative of the teachers' capabilities to bring about desired outcomes of the student engagement and learning process. 3.
The eleven (11) variables of the transformational leadership styles of school principals affect teachers' selfefficacy, but two (2) variables were found to the best predictors of teachers' self-efficacy, to wit: contingent reward and effectiveness. 4.
Significant management implications were drawn from the findings of the study: (1) the need for the school principals to make more active involvement in planning and implementing school activities, (2) the need to enhance the clarification of roles from leaders to followers, offering of contingent rewards towards work completion, (3) and the need to enhance school principals' competencies in doing strategic planning which may define clearly the schools' vision-mission statement near to its actualization.

Recommendations:-
Based on the conclusions of the study, the following recommendations are offered: 1. School principals may continue to enhance the satisfactory and very satisfactory ratings of their leadership skills. Further enhancement on the strategic planning and decision making are recommended. 2. Teachers may consider the continuous improvement of their self-efficacy in terms of student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management. They may enroll in post graduate studies as part of their professional growth and development.

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3. School principals are challenged to further hone and advance their transformational leadership abilities according to the needs of the school and their teacher-subordinates. They may attend supplemental trainings concerning leadership styles and conduct teacher needs assessment. 4. Significant insights can be learned from the management implications drawn from the study. It appears imperative that closer attention and consideration may be extended in the interest of further improvement and development of school management system.

Acknowledgement:-
This endeavor is indeed impossible without the persons who stood with me throughout my thesis writing journey.
To you, my gratitude is eternal.
To God, who never failed since then, the One True source of all, Your love and mercy are what keeps me going. Thank you for trusting my futility. It is you whom I owed this individuality I live now, though imperfect, still exquisitely loved and forgiven by You. My Thesis Adviser, Dr. Reynaldo Cruz, thank you for your trust, for your fatherly concern, for being with me, the best po kayo! To my proficient panelists, Dr. Amancio S. Villamejor and Sr. Editha S. Zerna, OSA, the University President, Dr. Alvin V. Nuqui, Chairman of the panelists, thank you for extending your time and efforts for the betterment of my work.
To the intercession of our Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Consolation my heart is forever grateful with your unwavering companionship.