Instructional Leadership Practices and School Leaders\u27 Self-Efficacy

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate instructional leadership practices and the degree to which these practices predict the leadership self-efficacy of school leaders while controlling for years of experience as a school leader. With educational reform focused on school accountability, principals must attend to tasks that lead to school improvement. Identifying such tasks as instructional leadership practices and gaining a more comprehensive understanding of instructional leadership practices through leadership self-efficacy may contribute to school improvement. The methodology utilized a survey and the participants were 100 principals and assistant principals of public schools in the southeastern United States, spanning 18 school districts and 180 schools. The findings revealed that supervising and evaluating instruction and monitoring student progress were significant positive predictors of leadership self-efficacy for the entire sample of respondents whereas coordinating curriculum was only approaching significance. This pattern shifted, however, when the sample was divided between principals and assistant principals. For practical implications, educational leaders and key constituents may consider these results for reflection on practice as well as planning professional learning for skill development to attain school improvement. Recommendations for future research include expansion of the population to include participants in other locations as well as the inclusion of additional instructional leadership practices