Date of Award

Spring 5-1-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Brad Balch

Second Advisor

Ryan Donlan

Third Advisor

David Marcotte

Abstract

Indiana public school administrators are one of the most important factors for a school’s academic success. If those administrators are effective, they can help maintain an excellent school’s academic success or perhaps even turnaround a failing school. Without a doubt, their performance is critical for a school’s success. If they have confidence in their ability to help create positive outcomes, their school can achieve great things. Unfortunately, assistant principals and principals are facing significant challenges, not only from schools, but also at home. How do these personal and professional stressors affect their sense of self-efficacy? The purpose of this study was to examine the possible link between personal and professional stress and self-efficacy. To that end, there were several research questions and null hypotheses. A survey consisting of 32 questions was sent to 1,842 public school assistant principals and principals in Indiana. The final sample size was 169. Data concluded that personal and professional stress levels were not related to building level supervised. After an exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the data, the self-efficacy was loaded cleanly onto two constructs: personality self-efficacy and instructional leadership selfefficacy. The survey results indicated that public school administrators in Indiana overwhelmingly showed a high level of self-efficacy in both instructional leadership selfefficacy and attitude self-efficacy. Fisher’s Exact testing indicated an insignificant relationship between Personal Stress and Building and Professional Stress and Building. The Kruskal-Wallis test for personal stress was found to be statistically significant. A series of Mann-Whitney U test was used to determine between which groups the difference occurs. Statistical analyses found that middle school administrators showed higher levels of personal stress than their high school peers. Additional analysis showed that combination middle school and elementary school administrators experienced more personal stress than high school counterparts. Analysis showed that leaders in combined middle school and elementary schools experienced more personal stress than their middle school counterparts. Additional testing showed that administrators from combined middle school and elementary schools experienced more personal stress than elementary school leaders. Lastly, analysis showed that leaders from combined middle school and elementary school experienced more personal stress than leaders from combined high school and middle school buildings. A one-way ANOVA was performed to assess the differences in personal and professional stress composite scores based on years of experience. It was found that there was no statistically significant difference for years of experience for either personal stress nor professional stress. A linear regression was done to understand the predictive personal stress on instructional leadership self-efficacy. The predictive model was statistically significant. Personal stress was found to be statistically significantly predictive of instructional leadership self-efficacy. Basically, a one-unit increase of personal stress will decrease the value of instructional leadership self-efficacy. An additional linear regression was conducted to investigate the link between professional stress and instructional leadership self-efficacy. The predictive model was statistically significant. That is, when professional stress increases, instructional leadership self-efficacy decreases. Analyses were also conducted to investigate the link between personal stress and attitude/personality self-efficacy. A linear regression was run, and the results showed that personal stress was a statistically significant predictive of attitudes/personality self-efficacy. As personal stress increased, attitude/personality self-efficacy decreased. Professional stress, however, was found to be an insignificant predictor of personality/attitude self-efficacy. In light of the importance of the school administrator his or her impact on the overall achievement of the school, this research is critical. When stress levels are lower, self-efficacy can be higher. When the school administrator has a stronger sense of self-efficacy, this could affect job satisfaction, job performance, and possibly affect the overall morale of the school. More research to alleviate personal and professional stress will be vital to helping the school administrator better impact the school at large.

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