The Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy in the Relationship between Student Outcomes and Principal Behavior

Principal behaviors affect the improvement of school outcomes significantly not only by providing psychological and professional support for teachers but also by facilitating a positive learning environment at school. This has cultivated both policy and research interest in understanding how principals’ leadership behaviors can leverage student outcomes both directly and indirectly through teachers. In this quest, three leadership models have become prominent due to their close relation to classroom instruction and learning: instructional, transformational, and distributed leadership. The current study aims to reveal the causal relationships between these leadership behaviors of principals and student outcomes as well as assessing the mediating effect of teacher self-efficacy on this relationship. Utilizing meta-analytic structural equation modelling (MASEM) methodology, the study analyzes data from prior studies to offer a more comprehensive and holistic analysis of the complex relationships between the variables. The analysis of data from 90 studies and 499.335 participants in total showed that all three leadership behaviors affected student outcomes both directly and indirectly through teacher self-efficacy. They also had a moderate direct influence on teacher self-efficacy while teacher self-efficacy had a moderate effect on student outcomes. These results reiterate the significance of principal leadership behaviors to facilitate student outcomes and suggest that the integrated practice of leadership in accordance with contextual requirements could leverage the effectiveness and improvement of schools.