Teacher Efficacy

Teacher Efficacy



Teacher Efficacy

Introduction

With the work of Rotter (1966) as a theoretical base, teacher efficacy was first conceived by the Rand researchers as the extent to which teachers believed that they could control the reinforcement of their actions, that is, whether control of reinforcement lay within themselves or in the environment. Student motivation and performance were assumed to be significant reinforcers for teaching behaviors. Thus, teachers with a high level of efficacy believed that they could control, or at least strongly influence, student achievement and motivation. A second conceptual strand of theory and research grew out of the work of Bandura (1977), identifying teacher efficacy as a type of self-efficacy--a cognitive process in which people construct beliefs about their capacity to perform at a given level of attainment. These beliefs influence how much effort people put forth, how long they will persist in the face of obstacles, their resilience in dealing with failures, and how much stress or depression they experience in coping with demanding situations (Bandura, 1997). The existence of these two separate but intertwined conceptual strands has contributed to a lack of clarity about the nature of teacher efficacy.

Early Studies of Efficacy

The first studies of efficacy, conducted by the Rand Corporation, were grounded in Rotter's social learning theory.

The Rand Studies

In 1976 the Rand Corporation published a study that examined the success of various reading programs and interventions (Armor et al., 1976). Teacher efficacy, determined by summing scores on the two items in italics below, was strongly related to variations in reading achievement among minority students. In a second study Rand researchers found teacher efficacy to be a strong predictor of the continuation of federally funded projects after the end of funding (Berman et al, 1977). Teachers' sense of efficacy had a strong positive effect not only on student performance but on the percent of project goals achieved, on the amount of teacher change, and on the continued use of project methods and materials after the project ended.

Webb Scale

At about the same time as the RSA and the TLC were being developed, a third group of researchers sought to expand the Rand efficacy questions to increase their reliability. The Webb Scale (Ashton, et al., 1982) was an attempt to extend the measure of teacher efficacy while maintaining a narrow conceptualization of the construct. To reduce the problem of social desirability bias, Webb and his colleagues used a forced-choice format with items matched for social desirability. (See Table 1 for example items.) They found that teachers who scored higher on the Webb Efficacy Scale evidenced fewer negative interactions (less negative affect) in their teaching style (Ashton, et al, 1982).

Ashton Vignettes

Based on the assumption that teacher efficacy is context specific, Ashton and her colleagues (1984) developed a series of vignettes describing situations a teacher might encounter and asking the teacher to make a judgment as to the cause or causes involved. They tested two frames of reference for judgments. The first asked teachers to judge how they would perform in the ...