University students' perception of leadership, akademic self-efficacy and school alienation (Erzincan University sample)

University students' school alienation is perceived as a problem encountered in Turkish educational institutions. The case of school alienation may result in the isolation of students, schools' getting meaningless in the eyes of students and their dropout as a consequence. It is considered that students' academic self-efficacy and leadership perception are related to the issue of school alienation. Thus, this study aims to examine the relationship between students' perceptions about their leadership, school alienation and academic self-efficacy. This quantitative study was designed as a relational survey model. The data was collected from a sample of 963 university students using stratified sampling strategy. "Student Alienation Scale" (Çağlar, 2012), "Academic Self Efficacy Scale" (Ekici, 2012) and "Student Leadership Scale", the latter of which was developed within the present study, were used as data collection tools. Descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, one way variance analysis and structural equation modelling strategies were applied in the data analysis stage. The findings of the study suggested that the university students who participated in the study had higher degrees of belief regarding leadership and medium level of belief regarding school alienation and academic self-efficacy. The students' perceptions about leadership and academic self-efficacy were not significantly different according to gender; however, they were significantly different according to working status of students, holding a leadership position, class level, cumulative grade point average (CGPA), entrance field to the faculty and involvement in activities as a practitioner. On the other hand, students' perceptions about school alienation were not significantly different according to holding a leadership position, class level and involvement in activities as a practitioner; however, they were significantly different according to gender, working status of students, CGPA, faculty and entrance field to the faculty. Lastly, students' perception regarding leadership was found as a full mediator between academic self-efficacy and school alienation. In conclusion, students' academic self-efficacy perceptions may be increased and their school alienation level may be decreased by improving their leadership perception.