THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF GENERAL SELF-EFFICACY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP OF SCHOOL HEADS AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT OF TEACHERS

: The purpose of this study was to determine the mediating effect of general self-efficacy on the relationship between the transformational leadership of school heads and the organizational commitment of teachers. Utilizing quantitative, non-experimental design via correlational technique, data were obtained from 300 elementary public-school teachers who belong to the 3 districts, Magsaysay, Bansalan and Matan-ao under the Division of Davao Del Sur in the province of Davao Del Sur. The researcher utilized a stratified random sampling technique and an online survey mode of data collection. The researcher also utilized the statistical tools mean, Pearson r and Medgraph using Sobel z-test. From the results of the study, it was found out that there is a very high level of mean scores for transformational leadership of school heads, a very high level of the mean score for the organizational commitment of teachers and a high level of general self-efficacy for teachers. Also, results revealed that there are significant relationships between the transformational leadership of school heads and the organizational commitment of teachers, between the transformational leadership of school heads and general self-efficacy of teachers, and between general self-efficacy and organizational commitment of teachers. Further, it was revealed that there was a full mediation effect of general self-efficacy on the relationship between the transformation leadership of school heads and the organizational commitment of teachers.


Introduction
Organizational commitment of employees poses more challenges to organizations today.Employers are challenged to develop strategies to motivate employees in order to be committed at work.Specifically, it is more challenging for millennials to stick to the organization since they are more committed to their profession than to the organization.Hence, in most cases, employees exhibit a low level of organizational commitment (Guhao, 2019;Mahdi et al., 2017;Suryani, 2018).Relatively, in this modern context of the educational profession, teaching has been perceived as a complex and demanding profession and the question of how to build up commitment among teachers is still a problem.Teachers with low organizational commitment display tardiness and absenteeism.They leave school organizations and are only interested in their own success which affects their involvement to provide quality education and their ability in helping students towards academic achievement (Gokyer, 2018;Labatmediene et al., 2017).
In conjunction, organizational commitment is vital for all organizations.It is the primary factor that determines organizational competitiveness which enhances the motivation, and engagement of employees (Caballero & Guhao, 2020;Hanaysha, 2016).In conjunction, organizational commitment has a huge impact on the school organization as a whole.The organizational commitment of teachers is very important since it is essential for school effectiveness and indirectly affects the learning outcome of the students.Teachers who are able to respond to challenges and give their full commitment can help their organization succeed.High teacher dedication and commitment enable school organizations to move successfully (Bernaldez & Gempes, 2016;Mustafa et al., 2020).
Furthermore, the researcher has not come across a study that deals with the mediating effect of general self-efficacy on the relationship between the transformational leadership of school heads and the organizational commitment of teachers in the local setting.It is in this context that the researcher was interested to determine whether general self-efficacy has a mediating effect on the relationship between the transformational leadership of school heads and the organizational commitment of teachers in the 3 identified schools: School A, School B and School C. under the division of Davao del Sur.The results of this study may raise concern for the intended beneficiaries of this study and possibly develop action plans to improve teachers' general self-efficacy, transformational leadership of school heads and teachers' organizational commitment, thus, the need to conduct this study.developing a sense of purpose and being upbeat about their followers' potential to outperform expectations, transformational leaders can compel followers to commit to a compelling goal (Kumar, 2022).Team spirit can be fostered when managers continually strive to persuade and motivate their teams.This shows that leaders who can articulate clear goals and inspire their peers to take good, cooperative action contribute to overall workplace productivity and business growth (Salvador, 2022).Also, a Gallup study found that CEOs who are good at delegating increase revenue by 33%.They position their staff to take on projects they are confident they will complete since these executives are aware that they cannot complete everything on their own.This empowers workers, boosts morale, and increases production.In the process, CEOs have more time to devote to tasks that will expand the business and produce the highest returns (Landry, 2020).Most competent managers are capable of completing any work that the team needs them to (Doyle, 2020).
Further, it can also be effective in emergency situations where completing specific tasks must take priority.Leaders can make sure that things get done by delegating definite responsibilities to specific people.Leaders are entrusted with letting group members know exactly what is expected, outlining the benefits of completing jobs successfully, outlining the penalties for failing to do so, and providing feedback intended to keep workers on track.Leaders concentrate on maintaining the structure of the group (Cherry, 2020).The leader encourages staff members to contribute their thoughts and opinions to group decision-making.Developing a sense of psychological ownership of a team member and their team for the tasks they must complete is a goal of empowering leaders.The leader's job is to ensure that the team's decisions are in line with the organization's goals by fostering team learning and problem-solving (Lorinkova, Pearsall, Henry, & Sims, 2013;Brunders, Broerse, & Regeer, 2021).

Organizational Commitment
Organizations continually face challenges to compete effectively with global environments.These are accompanied by modifications in the structure and planning of workplace procedures and people, including strategies for implementing change to effectively satisfy worldwide requirements.It was stressed that any organization's achievement resides in fostering an efficient technique by which staff can be ready to embrace change as they are the core implementers of the development programs, which in turn lead to employee engagement with the organization.In this connection, organizational commitment is the relationship between the organization and its employees.It has consequences based on their self-experience in a choice to continue or discontinue membership in the organization.The more established the relationship inside the organization is, the more organizational commitment is present.Employees who are organizationally committed have the tendency not to violate the policies prescribed by the organization and have good attendance at work because they see their work as an essential component of life.As said, willingness is tantamount to commitment (Caballero & Guhao, 2020).
In addition, in the educational context, the school organizational commitment of teachers is very important for achieving school effectiveness which in turn influences students' learning outcomes.Additionally, teachers' organizational commitment plays an essential role in establishing a unified effort within a school organization.Thus, it is necessary for every individual in the school organization to build up efforts in supporting the augmentation of teachers' commitment towards the school organization.Herewith, this will allow the school organization to come across impending organizational challenges and concurrently maintain the organizational commitment of teachers (Bernaldez & Gempes, 2016).
Under organizational commitment is the affective commitment.It is the emotional attachment of the people to the organization and a conviction in its values.This domain reveals commitment based on emotional connections the workers cultivate with the organization principally through helpful job experiences (Meyer et al., 2012;Saravanan & Udhayashankar, 2015).Affective commitment enables workers to work with dedication, accept their employers' aims and objectives, and contribute to the organization's success (Hashmi, Ahmad, & Nawaz, 2021;Ullah, Kamran, Akram, Nawaz, & Rehman, 2021).Affective commitment should result in increased job satisfaction, increased commitment, and decreased turnover (Khan & Iqbal, 2020b).
Continuance commitment is the extent to which staff remain in the organization because of the felt acceptance and the concept that leaving would mean sacrificing future career plans because of uncertainty.Other staff may engage with their current organizations due to the absence of better options for their staff and the implications of failure once they resign (Caballero & Guhao, 2020).

General Self-Efficacy
Teachers' self-efficacy has progressively gained an important role in school psychology research as a result of its implications for teaching effectiveness, instructional practices, and for students' academic achievement.Teachers' self-efficacy, namely teachers' beliefs in their ability to effectively handle the tasks, obligations, and challenges related to their professional activity, plays a key role in influencing important academic outcomes such as students' achievement and motivation and well-being in the working environment (Barni et al., 2019;Klassen & Tze, 2014).
Also, considerable research has shown that teachers with high levels of selfefficacy experience higher levels of job satisfaction, lower levels of job-related stress and face less difficulties in dealing with students' misbehaviors.Also, teachers with higher levels of openness to experience and conscientiousness reported a stronger sense of efficacy.Thus, understanding self-efficacy may have important payoffs in working for teachers' well-being and school effectiveness and improvement (Barni et al., 2019;Perera, Granziera, & McIlveen, 2018).
Leadership is critical to the growth of businesses and individual job performance (Qi et al., 2019;Afsar et al., 2020).A leader, in particular, must give his or her followers the tools they need to be productive and progress toward a common vision (Zhao and Zhou, 2019).Transformational leadership is a leadership style in which subordinates are persuaded to see beyond self-interest by transforming their confidence and interest in exceeding expectations (Jena et al., 2018;Khan et al., 2021c).Transformational leadership is an essential component for businesses that are willing to anticipate fundamental transitions in order to create an appropriate atmosphere for positive or adaptive changes through an effective process (Khan et al., 2020a;Hai and Park, 2021).Leaders' transformational actions as learning support are nearly inextricably related to the culture of affective organizational commitment (Cho et al., 2019;Mwesigwa et al., 2020).
Further, transformational leadership has been highlighted as a significant influence in the development of affective organizational commitment (Sahu et al., 2018).When transformational leaders utilize individual consideration to address the needs of their followers, they transcend economic transactions, and contribute to lengthy organizational tenure and strong commitment (Nazir and Islam, 2017).According to previous research, transformational leadership is the best precursor of affective organizational commitment (Islam et al., 2018).
Also, according to Coladarci (1992), general and personal self-efficacy are major predictors of teacher engagement, with instructors who have both higher general and personal efficacy preferring to have higher teacher engagement.Tsai et al. (2011) discovered that self-efficacy has a strong beneficial influence on organizational commitment among banking personnel.Syabarrudin et al. (2020) have confirmed that self-efficacy has a substantial influence on employees' organizational commitment.As a result, individuals who are confident in their ability to complete a task are more likely to remain with the firm.According to Liu and Huang (2019), occupational self-efficacy has a direct impact on organizational commitment.
Additionally, self-efficacy is comparable to people's ability to act in that it reveals if a person's conduct can affect the intended performance.It is not only an effective component in terms of an individual's goals and actions, but it also depends on the situation in which it occurs (Van Acker et al., 2013).Teacher efficacy refers to a teacher's belief in the ability of a group of instructors to take on essential obligations (Han and Wang, 2021).Teacher self-efficacy is important in an educator's choice of personal goals, tenacity in the face of adversity, and motivation to conduct certain behaviors in teaching, such as when employing digital learning content (Van Acker et al., 2013).Educators who have a high sense of self-efficacy are more devoted and less likely to burn out (Fathi et al., 2021).
This study is anchored on the Leadership-Membership Exchange (LMX) theory of Dansereau, Graen, & Haga (1975) which states how leadership might influence subordinates.The goal of LMX theory is to explain the effects of leadership on members, teams, and organizations.According to the theory, leaders form strong trust, emotional, and respect-based relationships with some members of a team, but not with others (Bauer & Ergoden, 2015).Furthermore, revealed that the behaviors of leaders result in higher levels of follower commitment at work.In conjunction, various studies (Gillet & Vandenberghe, 2014;Gulluce et al., 2016;Kouzes & Posner, 2012;Meyer & Allen, 1997;Porter, 2014) revealed transformational leadership practices are associated with organizational commitment.Leaders should boost the organizational commitment of employees by displaying transformational leadership attitudes and behaviors.
Moreover, this study is supported by Self-Efficacy theory of Bandura (1997).According to Bandura (1997), people are a product of behavioral, personal and environmental forces.This interplay affects people's perception of their ability in relation to delivering or accomplishing tasks.He further grouped them into two categories based on their self-efficacy: low and high self-efficacy.He stressed that a person with high selfefficacy is proactive, always ready to take on new challenges and perseveres with given tasks even if the task is difficult or hard.Conversely, a person with low self-efficacy tends to avoid tasks, always complain when given additional tasks and dislikes innovation.
Another support theory in this study is the social exchange theory, Emerson & Cook (1976).Social exchange theory is a sociological and psychological theory that studies the social behavior in the interaction of two parties that implement a cost-benefit analysis to determine risks and benefits.Social exchange theory says that human relationships and social behavior are rooted in an exchange process.The theory also involves economic relationships-the cost-benefit analysis occurs when each party has goods that the other parties value.Social exchange theory is also applicable to the workplace.

Material and Methods
Out of the total population of 1,200 public elementary school teachers, in MABAMA, there were 300 respondents of the study who are elementary public school teachers in the three districts in District A (Magsaysay), District B (Bansalan) and District C (Matanao) (MABAMA), Davao del Sur.The Slovin's formula (Stephanie, 2003) was used to compute the sample size.A stratified random sampling method was used in determining the respondents of the study.Stratified random sampling is a method for sampling from a population whereby the population is divided into subgroups and units are randomly selected from the subgroups.In this case, the public elementary school teachers in MABAMA only were the groups to become respondents.Moreover, the idea was that the groupings are made so that the population units within the groups are similar (Salkind, 2007).The distribution was as follows: 100 respondents for District A, 100 respondents for District B and 100 respondents for District C. In particular, included in this study as the respondents were the regular public elementary school teachers of the 3 identified districts in MABAMA, who are currently employed and whose plantilla numbers are in the Department of Education, as they are the ones who were in the position to provide useful information upon testing the hypothesis of the study.
Those teachers who are not teaching under the elementary department in the areas of Magsaysay, Bansalan and Matanao were excluded from the study, for they were in different work environments and supervision.Also, teachers who were working in secondary and private schools whether in the same identified areas including those teachers also who hold managerial or supervisory positions were excluded from the study.
The respondents were chosen accordingly to answer the questionnaire with confidentiality.The target respondents were free to decline from participating in the survey.They were not forced to answer the research questionnaire and were encouraged to return the same to the researcher for its automatic disposal.Moreover, they can withdraw anytime their participation in the research process if they felt uncomfortable about the study since they were given the free will to participate without any form of consequence or penalty.
This study was conducted in 3 different districts of public elementary schools in Magsaysay, Bansalan and Matanao (MABAMA), Davao del Sur which is part of Region XI in the Philippines.Region XI is located in the southeastern portion of Mindanao, and Mindanao consists of five provinces, namely: Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, Davao Oriental, and Davao Occidental.The region encloses the Davao Gulf and its regional center is Davao City.The province of Davao Del Sur was created by the defunct Congress on May 8, 1967, under Republic Act No. 4867.It started functioning as a province on July 1, 1967, which was comprised of only ten (10) municipalities where Digos was the capital.
The researcher believed that this is the appropriate locale of the study because it has a good number of respondents who can ensure concrete results of the study and that the researcher has not come across a study using the variables on general self-efficacy, transformational leadership and organizational commitment of teachers.Moreover, in the aforementioned areas under study, the teachers are still affected by the pandemic that the world is experiencing up to this point in time because of the continuous observance of the health and safety protocols which hinders the teachers from fully implementing class activities and exercises.Although face-to-face classes are slowly being implemented yet this needs another adjustment from the teachers on the teaching and learning methods.As a result, the shift from an online setting to face-to-face classes or the new normal which entails a total adjustment in terms of class preparation and conduct of class activities has affected the teachers' efficacy and commitment to the delivery of their teaching services to the students.
This study utilized a quantitative non-experimental design of research using a correlational technique.This kind of design according to De Vaus (2001) provided summary data specifically measures of central tendency including the mean, standard deviation and correlation between variables or employing methods of analyzing correlations between multiple variables by using tests such as Pearson r and regression analysis.Generally, correlational studies use independent and dependent variables, but the effect of the independent variable is observed on the dependent variable without manipulating the independent variable (Patidar, 2013).This technique was appropriate since the study aims to determine whether general self-efficacy has a relationship to transformational leadership and the organization commitment of teachers (Creswell, 2014).
Moreover, the mediation process was used to determine whether the relationship between transformational leadership as the independent variable and organizational commitment as the dependent variable is significantly reduced after the inclusion of the mediator variable-general self-efficacy.In other words, mediating relationships occur when a third variable plays an important role in governing the relationship between the other two variables (MacKinnon, 2008).
The first draft of the research instrument was submitted to the research adviser for comments, suggestions and recommendations to improve its presentation and the corrections were included and integrated.The final copies were submitted to a panel of experts for refinement.The final revision was made by incorporating the corrections, comments and suggestions given by the expert validators before the gathering of data.The consolidated results from the experts may obtain an average weighted mean of 4.14 which has a verbal description of very good.
Further, before the administration of the research instrument, pilot testing was done on selected teachers who were not the respondents of the study.The survey questionnaire for the pilot test was subjected to reliability testing to establish using Internal Consistency Method.This is the most appropriate method to use since the test contains dichotomously scored items in which the examinee either passes or fails an item.The computed reliability of the instrument revealed: 0.969 for General self-efficacy, 0.970 for transformational leadership and 0.938 for organizational commitment.
This study followed a systematic procedure.First, the researcher prepared a letter request to be approved by the Dean, Professional Schools.The approved letter was forwarded to the School Division Superintendent of the Department of Education Division of Davao del Sur asking permission the conduct the study.Then, the researcher furnished a copy of the approved letter to the different School Heads of the respondents for the conduct of a full-blown data gathering.
Before the administration of the survey questionnaire to the respondents of the 3 public schools under the division of Davao del Sur, Province of Davao del Sur, the researcher visited the school heads of the 3 identified public schools for a courtesy call and discussed the plan on the conduct of online survey thru google forms to all concerned respondents.The researcher strictly observes the safety protocols during this pandemic time as per mandate by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Emerging Infectious Disease (COVID-19) such as physical/social distancing and the wearing of face masks.During the courtesy call, a list and contact numbers/email addresses of all respondents/teachers were requested from the offices of the concerned school heads/principals.The list served as the basis for the researcher for the data gathering.The researcher transferred the survey questionnaire to the template of Google Forms and which template contained specific instructions for the accomplishment and retrieval of the instrument, which contents were understandable by the respondents.
Also, before the actual data collection, the researcher secured the Certificate of Compliance from UMERC to ensure compliance with some ethical considerations in research.All retrieved questionnaires were encoded in the Excel template after verification and checking as to the completeness of the answers.After all the tallying and validating of results, the data was analysed and interpreted in line with the objectives of the study.Based on the findings of the study, conclusions and recommendations were formulated.
The following statistical tools were used in the computation of data and testing the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance: mean was used to determine the level of general self-efficacy, transformational leadership and organizational commitment of teachers.Pearson Product Moment Correlation (Pearson r) was used to determine the significance of the relationship between and among general self-efficacy, transformational leadership and organizational commitment of teachers.Medgraph using Sobel Z test was used to determine the significance of the mediation of general self-efficacy on the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment of teachers.
In the conduct of this study especially before the data were gathered, ethical issues and considerations were dealt with.The researcher underwent an evaluation conducted by the members of the ethics review committee.After several review processes, this study was marked as passed and approved by the UM Ethics Review Committee (UMERC).
The participation of the respondents was completely voluntary and anonymous to protect their privacy and information was given whenever the respondents did not understand, before deciding whether to participate or not in the study.As a researcher, all data gathered were kept confidential and such information was only utilized for the purpose of the research.Informed consent was secured from all the respondents who were involved in the study.The participants were carefully selected based on the criteria provided in the research The study did not involve high risks of situations that the respondents experienced since the respondents were public elementary school teachers and this was conducted in accordance with due process.
All the teachers were the primary beneficiaries of the study.The study used the Grammarly or Turnitin software and/ or Plagiarism Detector to ensure that there was no plagiarism that happened during the whole duration of the study.The study underwent the standard procedure of research established by the Professional Schools of the University of Mindanao.There was no evidence that the study was intentionally misrepresented to match a model or theoretical assumption.The study had no conflict of interest since the researcher had no relationship with the respondents of the study.In this study, there was no deceit.The researcher secured proper permission from the targeted agencies where the respondents were teaching/working.Considering the risks of COVID-19, and in the conduct of the online data gathering, the researcher utilized Google Forms where the respondents indicated their responses to the specific item questions being asked.No person was authorized to publish nor present this paper except the researcher or the adviser without the consent of the researcher.The level of transformational leadership is very high due to the very high levels of responses.The indicators charisma, execution, delegation, vision, social and transactional were arranged from highest to lowest.The very high level of charisma suggests that there is a very high inclination of the school heads to lead the teachers by influencing and inspiring them with their moral principles.This is in line with the claim of various authors (Radulović et al., 2021) that charismatic leaders have strong moral principles, a willingness to influence others, and a high degree of self-assurance.Charismatic leaders are regarded as strong behavioral role models by their followers.Additionally, charismatic leaders show their followers that they are competent, convey definite moral objectives to their followers, set high standards and give their followers confidence that they can meet them.Additionally, charismatic leaders inspire followers by arousing their regard, allegiance, or power.

Results and Discussion
In addition, the high level of execution suggests that the school heads delegate tasks and make sure that the teachers are able to accomplish the tasks and contribute to achieving the school's goal.This is in line with the study of various authors (Lorinkova et al., 2013;Brunders, Broerse, & Regeer, 2021) stating that the leader encourages staff members to contribute their thoughts and opinions to group decision-making.Developing a sense of psychological ownership of a team member and their team for the tasks they must complete is a goal of empowering leaders.The leader's job is to ensure that the team's decisions are in line with the organization's goals by fostering team learning and problem-solving.
Delegation with its high level suggests that the school heads are able to highly determine the division of tasks and distinguish the right person to accomplish such tasks.This is in line with the claim of Landry (2020) that delegation happens when a leader gives their team members specific tasks to complete.Leaders can focus on tasks with a higher return on investment when they assign duties to team members; keeping workers motivated and empowered.Also, competent leaders are capable of completing any work that the team needs them to (Doyle, 2020).
Further, the high level of vision suggests that the school heads kept the teachers motivated by encouraging them to think critically and used different available learning tools.This is in line with the claim of Kumar (2022) that it is curiosity and not intelligence that propels a transformational leader to success.Transformational leaders challenge presumptions and encourage stimulation by fostering critical thinking and problemsolving abilities, creativity, and innovation through thinking outside the box.In addition, the high level of social suggested that the school heads have a high inclination to help the teachers in learning by coaching and mentoring them.This is in line with the claim of Sayyadi and Provitera (2022) stating that transformational leaders frequently invest time in coaching others and recognize that each person has different needs, skills, and objectives.They also offer a variety of formal training programs to enhance job performance and assist organizational members in identifying and enhancing their strengths.
Lastly, the very high level of transaction indicated that the school heads highly impose standards, rules, and goals to avoid committing errors and ensure discipline.This is in line with the claims of Salvador (2022) that leaders who can articulate clear goals and inspire their peers to take good, cooperative action contribute to overall workplace productivity and business growth.Moreover, such characteristics are useful in completing tasks during emergency situations.Leaders are entrusted with letting group members know exactly what is expected, outlining the benefits of completing jobs successfully, outlining the penalties for failing to do so, and providing feedback intended to keep workers on track.Leaders concentrate on maintaining the structure of the group (St.Thomas University, 2014; Cherry, 2020) The very high level of organizational commitment of teachers resulted from the very high levels of responses.The indicators of affective, normative and continuance were arranged from highest to lowest.The very high level of affective suggests that the teachers have a very high indication of satisfaction, enjoyment and strong attachment to their job and the school.This is in line with the claims of various authors (Hashmiet al., 2021;Ullah et al., 2021;Khan & Iqbal, 2020b) stating that workers that work with dedication, accept their employers' aims and objectives, and contribute to the organization's success are effectively committed.Moreover, affective commitment commonly results in increased job satisfaction, increased commitment, and decreased turnover.Also, the very high level of normative commitment indicates that teachers are very highly inclined to remain in the organization with their sense of obligation and responsibility.This is in line with the study of Muhammad et al. (2021) as they stated that the sense of obligation to remain in an organization is known as the normative commitment.If a worker believes that staying with the organization is morally and legally proper, they are more inclined to stay with it.
Lastly, the high level of continuance indicated a high level of the tendency to remain in the organization as they perceived that staying in the company is most beneficial for them.This is in line with the study of various authors (Caballero & Guhao, 2020) claiming that an employee manifests continuance commitment when they are inclined to stay in the organization due to the perceived financial and non-economic values.When the employees felt acceptance and the concept that leaving would mean sacrificing future career plans because of uncertainty, then there is a higher chance that the employee will stay.Other staff may engage with their current organizations due to the absence of better options for their staff and the implications of failure once they resign.The level of teacher general self-efficacy revealed a total mean score of 4.14 which is descriptively described as High and an SD of 0.30.The high level of general self-efficacy of the teachers is due to the very high and high level of participants' responses.As can be gleaned from Table 3, the statement "I can always manage to solve difficult problems if I try hard enough at work" has gained the highest mean score of 4.70 which is descriptively described as Very High.Further, the following statement "I can usually handle whatever comes my way at school work" ranked next with a mean score of 4.12 or High.Followed by the statement "I am confident that I can deal efficiently with unexpected events at school work" with a mean score of 4.09 or High.Followed by "It is easy for me to stick to my aims and accomplish my goals at school work," "I know how to handle unforeseen situations at school work because of my resourcefulness," and "I can usually find several solutions when confronted with a problem at school work" all with the mean score of 4.08 or High.Followed by "I can solve most problems if I invest the necessary effort in school work," "I can find the means and ways to get what I want while doing something at work; if someone opposes me," and "I can usually think of a solution if I am in trouble at school work" with the mean scores of 4.07 or High.And lastly, "I can remain calm at school work when facing difficulties because I can rely on my coping abilities" with a mean score of 4.06 or High.
The combined very high and high levels of responses resulted in a high level of general self-efficacy among teachers.This indicates that the school teachers have maintained a high level of confidence that they are able to perform their duties and responsibilities, and contribute to the school and the students' academic success.This is in line with the claims of various authors (Barni et al., 2019;Perera et al., 2018) that teachers with high levels of self-efficacy experience higher levels of job satisfaction, lower levels of job-related stress and face fewer difficulties in dealing with students' misbehaviors.Teachers with higher levels of openness to experience and conscientiousness reported a stronger sense of efficacy.Hence, understanding selfefficacy may have important payoffs in working for teachers' well-being and school effectiveness and improvement.Further, teachers who have a high level of self-efficacy produce better results regarding students' academic achievements.The correlation between measures of transformational leadership and organizational commitment of teachers.It can be seen from the table that the correlation gained an overall r-value of 0.284 with p-value of 0.000 which is lower than the 0.05 level of significance.This indicates that there is a significant relationship between transformational leadership and the organizational commitment of teachers.Thus, the null hypothesis of no significant relationship between transformational leadership and the organizational commitment of teachers is rejected.It can also be gleaned from the table that transformational leadership is significantly correlated to the organizational commitment of teachers since the indicators revealed the following overall r-values: charisma with 0.262, social with 0.190, vision with 0.255, transactional with 0.218, delegation with 0.232, and execution with 0.262; and the p-value is 0.000.Thus, the two variables are significantly associated.Further, data also revealed that the organizational commitment of teachers is significantly correlated to transformational leadership as the indicators revealed the following overall r-values: affective with 0.192, continuance with 0.337, normative with 0.208; and p-values 0.000.Hence, the two variables are positively associated.
The correlation between measures of transformational leadership and the organizational commitment of teachers revealed a significant relationship.This implies that transformational leadership is significantly correlated with the organizational commitment of teachers.The findings of this study were in line with the claims of various authors (Cho et al., 2019;Mwesigwa et al., 2020) that the leaders' transformational actions as learning support are nearly inextricably related to the culture of affective organizational commitment.Moreover, transformational leadership is a leadership style in which subordinates are persuaded to see beyond self-interest by transforming their confidence and interest in exceeding expectations (Jena et al., 2018;Khan et al., 2021c).The correlation between transformational leadership and teacher general self-efficacy.It can be seen from the table that when transformational leadership is correlated with the measures of general self-efficacy, the overall r-value reveals to be 0.481 and the p-value is 0.000 which is less than the 0.05 level of significance.This indicates that there is a significant relationship between transformational leadership and general self-efficacy.Therefore, the null hypothesis of no significant relationship between transformational leadership and general self-efficacy is rejected.The data also revealed that transformational leadership is positively correlated with teacher general self-efficacy as indicated by the overall r-values of the following measures: charisma with 0.351, social with 0.442, vision with 0.411, transactional with 0.477, delegation with 0.395, and execution with 0.334; and the p-value is 0.000.Thus, the two variables are significantly associated.
The correlation between the indicators of transformational leadership and the general self-efficacy of teachers revealed a significant relationship.This implies that transformational leadership is positively correlated with the general self-efficacy of teachers.The result of this study is in line with the claims of Sahu et al. ( 2018) that transformational leadership has been highlighted as a significant influence in the development of affective organizational commitment.When transformational leaders utilize individual consideration to address the needs of their followers, they transcend economic transactions and contribute to lengthy organizational tenure and strong commitment (Nazir and Islam, 2017).Transformational leadership is the best precursor of affective organizational commitment (Islam et al., 2018).The correlation between general self-efficacy and organizational commitment of teachers.
It can be seen from the table that the correlation gained an overall r-value of 0.984 and a p-value of 0.000 which is less than the 0.05 level of significance.This indicates that the correlation between general self-efficacy and organizational commitment of teachers is significant.Therefore, the null hypothesis of no significant relationship between general self-efficacy and organizational commitment of teachers is rejected.Data also revealed that when the organizational commitment of teachers is correlated with general self-efficacy, the following overall r-values are revealed: affective with 0.451, continuance with 0.580, and normative with 0.366; and the p-value is 0.000.These indicate that the two variables are significantly associated.
The correlation between the measures of general self-efficacy of teachers and the organizational commitment of teachers revealed a significant correlation.This implies that the general self-efficacy of teachers is significantly correlated to the organizational commitment of teachers.This result is in line with Syabarrudin et al. (2020) that confirmed that self-efficacy has a substantial influence on employees' organizational commitment.As a result, individuals who are confident in their ability to complete a task are more likely to remain with the firm.Further, Liu and Huang (2019) stated that occupational self-efficacy has a direct impact on organizational commitment.There are three steps to be met for a third variable to be acting as a mediator.In Figure 3, these are categorized as Steps 1 to 3. In step 1, transformational leadership as the independent variable (IV) significantly predicts the organizational commitment of teachers, which is the dependent variable (DV) of the study.In step 2, transformational leadership significantly predicts general self-efficacy, the mediator (M).In step 3, general self-efficacy significantly predicts the organizational commitment of teachers.Full mediation took place since the effect of transformational leadership on organizational climate was found to be insignificant at a p-value of 0.597 which is higher than the 0.05 level of significance.Meanwhile, the effect of the mediation was found to be significant at p<0.001 level.Therefore, full mediation has occurred.The Sobel test resulted in a z-value of 5.121 with a p-value of <0.001, which is significant at a 0.05 level.This implies that there is a full mediating effect, as it is likely that the original direct effect of transformational leadership on the organizational commitment of teachers has increased upon the addition of general self-efficacy.The Sobel z-value indicates that the addition of general self-efficacy increases the effect of transformational leadership on the organizational commitment of teachers.
The results of the computation of the effect size in the mediation test conducted between the three variables.The effect size measures how much of the effect of transformational leadership on the organizational commitment of teachers can be attributed to the indirect path.The indirect effect value of 0.2541 is the beta of transformational leadership towards the organizational commitment of teachers with general self-efficacy included in the regression.The direct effect value of 0.0292 is the beta of transformational leadership on the organizational commitment of teachers.The total effect value of 0.2833 is the amount of the original beta between transformational leadership and organizational commitment of teachers that now goes through general self-efficacy to the organizational commitment of teachers (a * b, where "a" refers to the path between transformational leadership organizational commitment of teachers and "b" refers to the path between teacher general self-efficacy organizational commitment of teachers).The ratio index is computed by dividing the indirect effect by the total effect; in this case, 0.2541 by 0.2833 equals 0.897.It seems that about 89.7 percent of the total effect of transformational leadership on the organizational commitment of teachers goes through general self-efficacy, and about 10.3% of the total effect is either direct or mediated by other variables not included in the model.
The aim of this study is to contribute to the literature regarding the possible mediating variable for the relationship between transformational leadership and the organizational commitment of teachers.Specifically, the general self-efficacy of teachers was investigated as the possible mediating variable that could explain the effect of transformational leadership on the organizational commitment of teachers.Full mediation is found in the study, and significant direct effects were presented that may help in the enrichment of the existing studies on transformational leadership and organizational commitment of teachers.Importantly, the current study on the relationship between transformational leadership and the organizational commitment of teachers has found relevance to the study of various authors (Windlinger et al., 2020;Fathi et al., 2021) have shown that transformative leadership positively affects teacher efficacy in a school environment, and in turn educators who have a high sense of selfefficacy are more committed and less likely to burn out.
The mediation analysis involved the path between transformational leadership and the general self-efficacy of teachers, and the path between the general self-efficacy of teachers and organizational commitment of teachers.The findings confirmed the positive relationship between transformational leadership and the organizational commitment of teachers corresponding to various authors.

Recommendations
The researcher came up with recommendations based on the results of the study.On the very high level of transformational leadership, it is hereby recommended that continuing professional development may be regularly granted to school heads and even to the staff who have supervisory positions to enhance their transformational leadership by providing more opportunities for designing mechanisms/programs in the conduct of training and seminars which may include Supervisory Development Seminar/Workshops, Organizational Leadership Training/Seminar, Training to enhance communication and IT-Led Teaching Strategies, counseling or other training and seminars which will further enhance their leadership skills and learn the value of being responsible towards the quality performance of schools.Moreover, it is recommended that school principals become more compassionate and humane in dealing with teachers and non-teaching staff by displaying a more sincere concern for the affective being of an individual.One-on-one dialogue, focus group discussions and sensitivity sessions may be conducted quarterly to enable the assessment of the individual capacities of teachers and staff in the performance of their functions.Stress management seminars, spiritual activities team building sessions and R and R activities may be conducted once a year for all concerned.
The very high result of organizational commitment is shown in the best practices that the school has shown to all the stakeholders: the teachers, students and parents.The continuing conduct of activities like regular meetings or dialogue with teachers, students and parents allows a meaningful relationship among the stakeholders.A regular monitoring of the students' performances in the classes may be continually communicated by the teachers to the parents specifically on the status of their children in the class.For the best achievements/performances of students, the teachers may consider giving of awards or recognition to all deserving students for a job well done in the class in the school as a whole.There is this feeling of ownership of the school where they are enrolled/studying as the teachers and the students show respect, trust and dedication in everything that they do in school.This feeling will transcend over to the family and to the community, thus creating a good image of the school.
The high level of general self-efficacy of teachers means that schools show quality performance wherein students can already profit from quality education.However, schools still need continuous improvement to support the learning process.School educators, administrators, parents and students may need to work collaboratively since their relationships are building blocks of effective teaching and student success.The teachers may also be exposed to training such as In-service Training for Teachers (INSET) and School Learning Action Cell (SLAC) sessions that can motivate them to deliver classroom instructions that facilitate collaborative and interactive learning processes in order for the learners to achieve high-quality performance.It is also suggested that the Department of Education officials, teachers, students, parents and community stakeholders may work hand in hand and must acknowledge their respective roles in achieving quality education with a focus on promoting leadership that makes the school production.More collaborative efforts to involve all stakeholders in the academe may be resorted to in order to continuously establish a good working relationship between and among the state, the government, the school, the parents and most especially the students.
The result of full mediation on the effect of general self-efficacy on the relationship between the transformational leadership of school heads and the organizational commitment of teachers is a manifestation of how the teachers are embracing the teaching job for the students and the school.The researcher recommends for continuous adoption of activities like open communication/dialogue among the stakeholders, the introduction of some innovations in the teaching strategies, reaching out to parents to participate in school activities like reactivation of the Parents-Teachers Association, joint community outreach with the involvement of parents, teachers and students and providing the students with some opportunities to join competitions, of all sorts, outside the school.The realization of the school's vision, mission and goals will all depend on how school management is sensitive to the needs of the teachers and students, after all, they are the people behind the success of the school.Furthermore, the results of this study may be a good basis for future researchers to replicate the study in other regions in a bigger scope using quantitative-structural equation model or a quantitative study using additional variables to determine whether the results may differ from this study and another qualitative study-a phenomenological one depicting the best practices of schools which may be duplicated by other schools as a basis for improvement and/or enhancement.

Conclusion
With consideration of the findings of the study, conclusions are drawn in this section.There is a very high level of transformational leadership of school heads, a very high level of organizational commitment in teachers and a high level of teacher's self-efficacy.Further, there is a significant relationship between transformational leadership and the organizational commitment of teachers.There is also a significant relationship between transformational leadership and the general self-efficacy of teachers, and a significant relationship between the general self-efficacy of teachers and organizational commitment of teachers.In addition, there is also a full mediation on the effect of the general selfefficacy of teachers on the relationship between transformational leadership and the organizational commitment of teachers.
The findings of the study clearly confirm the notion about the mediating effect of the general self-efficacy of teachers on the relationship between transformational leadership and the organizational commitment of teachers.The findings are supported by the Leadership-Membership Exchange (LMX) theory (1975) which states how leadership might influence subordinates.The goal of LMX theory is to explain the effects of leadership on members, teams, and organizations.The theory highlighted that leaders form strong trust, emotional, and respect-based relationships with their members boosting their self-efficacy, and stimulating their commitment to the organization.The findings were interpreted as a general acceptance of the hypothesis.
To the panel of examiners chaired by Jocelyn B. Bacasmot, PhD and members, Mary Ann E. Tarusan, PhD, Rinante L. Genuba, EdD and Edwin L. Nebria, PhD, for their professional guidance, constructive comments and suggestions for the improvement of the study.
To the officers of the Department of Education, Division of Davao del Sur who gave me permission to conduct this study and to all the respondent teachers under the 3 districts of Magsaysay, Bansalan and Matanao, who have given their wholehearted support in this study.
To his beloved parents Ruben Sr. P. Pablo and Wilma V. Pablo, siblings Sah Jehan V. Pablo, Ruwell V. Pablo, Ruby V. Nuesca and Sheila Mae P. Canada and friends for their selfless encouragement and support that made the researcher pursue higher education.
Finally, to the one above all, the Omnipresent God, thank you so much.
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Table 1 :
Level of Transformational Leadership

Table 2 :
Level of Organizational Commitment of Teacher

Table 3 :
Level of General Self-Efficacy

Table 4 . 1 :
Significance of the Relationship between Transformational Leadership and Organizational Commitment of Teachers

Table 4 . 2 :
Significance on the Relationship between TransformationalLeadership and General Self-efficacy of the teachers

Table 4 . 3 :
Significance of the Relationship between General Self-Efficacy and Organizational Commitment of Teachers

Table 5 :
Regression results of the variables in the criteria of the presence of mediating effect