The relationship between automatic thought frequency and self-efficacy beliefs of primary scool principals (Nevşehir sample)

The aim of the search is to examine the automatic thought frequencies and self-efficacy beliefs of the school principals working in primary schools. Within the scope of the research, after describing the automatic thought frequencies and self-efficacy beliefs of the principals; it was tested whether the automatic thought frequencies and self-efficacy beliefs of the principals differ statistically according to their gender, seniority, branch and place of the work. In the study the correlations between the automatic thought frequencies and self-efficacy beliefs of the school principals were tested and the predictive effects of the automatic thought frequencies of the principals on their self-efficacy beliefs were examined. The research was carried out with 200 school principals working in primary schools in Nevşehir province in the 2021-2022 academic year. The automatic thoughts scale developed by Holland and Kendal (1980) and the principal sense of efficacy scale developed by Tschannen Moran and Gareis (2004) were used in the research as data gathering instruments. The frequency of automatic thoughts of the principals participating in the research were described in five subdimensions of negative feelings and thoughts towards oneself, personal disharmony and desire for change, loneliness and isolation, bewilderment/escape fantasies and hopelessness. On the other hand self-efficacy beliefs of the school principals were described in the three sub-dimensions of managerial self-efficacy, instructional self-efficacy and ethical/moral self-efficacy. Moreover it was tested whether the frequency of automatic thoughts and self-efficacy beliefs of the school principals differ statistically depending on their gender, seniority, branch, age and place of employment. Finally the relationships between the frequency of automatic thoughts and self-efficacy beliefs of the school principals were examined by using correlation and regression analyzes in terms of the sub-dimensions of the scales. Following results were obtained in the research; it was determined that the self-efficacy beliefs of the school principals were high. Also it was determined that the frequency of automatic thoughts and self-efficacy beliefs of school administrators did not differ statistically according to their seniority, age and place of residence. Moreover a negative and high correlation was observed between automatic thoughts frequency and self-efficacy beliefs of the school principals. In terms of the regression analysis carried out to test the predictability of school principals' self-efficacy beliefs from their automatic thought frequencies, it was determined that automatic thought frequencies of the principals explained 77.1% of the variances in their self-efficacy beliefs. Keywords; Automatic Thought, Self-Efficacy Beliefs, School Principals, Core Beliefs, Intermediate Beliefs.