Date of Award

Spring 2021

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Kay A. Keiser, Ed. D.

Abstract

Collective teacher efficacy (CTE) has an enormous effect size (d = 1.57) on student achievement. Building principals are a key player in generating, fostering, and growing CTE in their team of teachers. However, principals do not know what leadership behaviors have the most impact on CTE. Therefore, the purpose of this quantitative study was to determine what relationship exists between principals’ empowering leadership behaviors and collective teacher efficacy.

This study sought to answer three questions: To what extent do first-year teachers perceive that their building principals exhibit empowering leadership behaviors? To what extent do first-year teachers perceive that they and their colleagues exhibit collective teacher efficacy? What is the relationship between first-year teachers’ perceptions of their principals’ empowering leadership behaviors and their perceptions of they and their colleagues’ collective teacher efficacy?

Study participants completed two surveys: the Empowering Leadership Questionnaire (Arnold et al., 2000) and the Collective Teacher Beliefs Survey (Tschannen-Moran & Barr, 2004). Data collected from the Empowering Leadership Questionnaire indicates that the participants in this study perceive that their building principals exhibit empowering leadership behaviors “most of the time” and sometimes “always.” Data collected from the Collective Teacher Beliefs Survey indicates that the participants in this study perceive that they and their colleagues can impact student instructional and behavioral outcomes “quite a bit.”

To explore the relationship between first-year teachers’ perceptions of their principals’ empowering leadership behaviors and they and their colleagues’ collective teacher efficacy, a series of Spearman’s rank-order correlations were conducted. All correlations calculated were positive and range from 0.176 (weak) to 0.506 (strong). Findings show that there is a strong relationship between the overall scores on the ELQ and CTBS with a Spearman’s r value of 0.506. Consequently, the findings of this study have implications for school districts and universities, but especially for current and aspiring school leaders. This study’s findings can help principals prioritize the many tasks and responsibilities they are charged with so that they can do what matters most when it comes to generating, fostering, and growing collective teacher efficacy in the team of teachers they lead.

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