Summary

A teacher’s belief in his or her own capability to prompt student engagement and learning, even when students are difficult or unmotivated, has been labeled “teacher self-efficacy” in the context of social learning and social cognitive theory developed by Albert Bandura. Research shows that teachers with high levels of self-efficacy are more open to new teaching methods, set themselves more challenging goals, exhibit a greater level of planning and organization, direct their efforts at solving problems, seek assistance, and adjust their teaching strategies when faced with difficulties. These efforts pay off for self-efficacious teachers themselves, who have been found to be affected by burnout less often and are more satisfied in their jobs but also for their students, who show more motivation, academic adjustment, and achievement. While self-efficacy of the individual teacher explains how the individual teacher’s beliefs relate to students’ academic development, collective teacher efficacy helps to understand the differential effect of faculty and whole schools on student outcomes. Consequently, systematically exploring effective techniques to increase teacher self-efficacy is highly relevant to the teaching context.

Previous research has suggested four sources related to the development of self-efficacy: mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and somatic and affective states. Although there is ample evidence that teacher self-efficacy and collective self-efficacy are important for teacher and student outcomes, and some intervention programs for teachers in trainings, career teachers, and upon school factors show promising results, there is still a lack of longitudinal and experimental research on the independent effect of each of the four sources on teacher self-efficacy.