The mediating effect of teacher self-efficacy regarding the relationship between transformational school leadership and teacher agency

The quality of school leaders and teachers is critical to both school development and student achievement. Thus, quality school leaders are needed for teachers to perform their assigned roles and tasks in line with the school goals. This paper examined the effect of transformational leadership behaviours of school principals on teacher agency. The study adopted a correlational research method and was conducted with 349 teachers working in primary, middle, and secondary schools of 15 cities located in eastern, central, and western Anatolia regions. Based on the variables observed in the school, path analysis was applied to analyse the relationships between implicit variables. A direct relationship was found between the transformational leadership practice of school principals and teachers’ behaviours. In addition, transformational leadership practices of school principals had a direct as well as a moderate effect on teacher agency; teacher self-efficacy led to an indirect increase on this effect.