The purpose of this study was to explore and describe public high school assistant principals’ reports of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997) in performing their professional job responsibilities in accordance with the Educational Leadership Constituency Council’s (ELCC) Standards for Advanced Programs in Educational Leadership (National Policy Board for Educational Administration, 2002b). Self-efficacy, as defined by Bandura (1997), refers to a person’s beliefs about and confidence in his or her capabilities to attain success in actions related to particular tasks in a specified domain and context. In this study, public high schools were the context; school leadership was the domain; and the ELCC Standards served to frame the responsibilities and define the actions and expected capabilities.

Eighty-seven public high school assistant principals in the state of Connecticut completed the School Administrator Self-Efficacy Scale [SAES] (McCollum, Kajs, & Minter, 2005), a self-report questionnaire designed to measure individuals’ self-efficacy in relation to the ELCC Standards (NPBEA, 2002b). Respondents were asked to rate their confidence level in performing tasks associated with each of the six ELCC practice standards.

Data analysis revealed that the majority of study participants reported high levels of confidence in performing the leadership responsibilities associated with Standards 1.0, 5.0, and 6.0. Moderate levels of confidence were reported by a majority of study participants in performing the leadership responsibilities associated with Standards 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0. Overall, a majority of participants reported moderate levels of confidence in performing all of the tasks associated with the ELCC Standards (NPBEA, 2002b).