Self-efficacy belief as a practical and parsimonious evaluation criterion in school leadership training

Abstract

Training evaluation is often neglected in educational leadership trainings due to many constraints surrounding it. One such constraint is difficulty in identifying and utilizing a parsimonious, result-oriented and psychometrically sound evaluation criterion. This study utilized self-efficacy beliefs as a practical and parsimonious evaluation criterion to explore the effectiveness of the aspiring school leaders’ (ASL) preparatory training in developing their self-efficacy beliefs in school leadership. The study measured the changes in the post-training self-efficacy beliefs of the ASLs as the indicator of training effectiveness. The Principal Self Efficacy Scale (PSES) was used on a sample of 226 ASLs to identify their beliefs in their abilities to accomplish aspects of school leadership. Generally, the findings of the Mc Nemar Bowker Test revealed that the training was not effective in enhancing the self-efficacy beliefs of the ASLs. Further analysis revealed a pattern which indicated those with lower selfefficacy benefited more from the training. This evaluation method utilizing self-efficacy beliefs was found to be useful with respect to theory and practice in other fields and is still largely unexplored and not given due consideration in leadership trainings. This research attempted to fill this void in school leadership especially in the Malaysian context.