Teacher self-efficacy

The construct of teacher efficacy is generally grounded in the psychological frames of Bandura (1997, 1999). Teacher’s self-efficacy has been defined as “teacher’s belief in his or her capability to organize and execute courses of action required to successfully

accomplish a specific teaching task in a particular context” (Tschannen-Moran et al.,

1998, p. 233). Further, teacher self-efficacy has also been conceptualized as teachers’ beliefs in their own ability to plan, organize and carry out activities required to attain given educational goals (Federici & Skaalvik, 2012), or as "teachers' belief or conviction that they can influence how well students learn, even those who may be difficult or unmotivated" (Guskey & Passaro, 1994, p. 4).

There are two major dimensions discussed in the literature in relation to teacher's sense of efficacy: personal teaching efficacy and general teaching efficacy (Ross, 1992; Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). The first dimension is generally agreed upon as having to do with teachers’ beliefs that the teaching profession in general can bring about student change or teachers’ beliefs in their ability to support and change student learning (Bandura, 2011; Ross, 1992). Swars (2005) describes personal teaching efficacy as teachers’ beliefs in their ability to become effective teachers. Another definition by Poulou (2007) defines personal teaching efficacy as teachers’ judgments of their ability to execute particular courses of action and to bring about desired goals. The second dimension, general teaching efficacy, refers to teachers’ beliefs that effective teaching can bring about student learning regardless of other factors such as home environment, family background, and parental influences (Ross, 1992; Swars, 2005). Therefore, Enochs, Smith, and Huinker (2000) tend to call this dimension

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‘outcome expectancy’ that reflects the idea that teachers expect specific teaching behaviours to results in desirable outcomes. Guskey and Passaro (1994) make a similar distinction of the two dimensions by proposing that the two dimensions do not correspond to a personal versus general teaching efficacy but rather to an internal versus external control distinction. These two dimensions of teacher efficacy are distinct in terms of name used and, therefore, an individual teacher may have a high level of personal teaching efficacy with regard to a particular content area but a low level of teaching outcome expectancy (Allinder, 1995; Swars, 2005).

Teacher self-efficacy theory that is applied in the educational context has encouraged a rich line of research (Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). This is because teachers’ self- efficacy beliefs are related to actions teachers take and/or outcomes of actions they achieve. According to Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001), self-efficacy for teachers is important because it determines the degree to which teachers can control their own actions internally or externally. For example, teachers who do not expect to be successful with certain students are likely put less efforts in preparing and delivering instructions, and to give up easily although they, in fact, know instructional strategies that could assist these students.

Teachers who concur that the influence of the environment overwhelms a teacher’s ability to have an impact on a student’s learning exhibit a belief that reinforcement of their teaching efforts lies outside their control or is external to them. Teachers who express confidence in their ability to teach difficult or unmotivated students evidence a belief that reinforcement of teaching activities lies within the teacher’s control or is internal (p.784).

Previous research indicates that efficacious teachers tend to plan their duties better than low efficacy teachers (Bandura et al., 1996; Gersten, Keating, Yovanoff, & Harniss, 2001; Stempien & Loeb, 2002). This is because high efficacy teachers perceive difficult tasks as challenges to be solved rather than consider them as threats to be put aside. They set challenging teaching goals and set a strong target to achieve them (Bandura, 1993; Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2007). On the other hand, low efficacy teachers usually shy away from difficult tasks because they perceive these tasks as personal threats (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2007). Low efficacy teachers also have low commitment to the learning goals that they have stated. They tend to give up easily in

23 handling and facing difficult conditions and find difficulties in recovering their sense of efficacy after failure or setbacks (Bong & Skaalvik, 2003; Caprara, Barbaranelli, Steca, & Malone, 2006). Onafowora (2005) in her research on the issues of self-efficacy of novice teachers at the beginning of their teaching career, argues that although teachers come to classrooms with good understanding of subject matter, they find difficulty in balancing their theoretical framework and practice. According to Onafowora, the stage of transition from learning to teaching requires a lot of confidence, which new teachers mostly do not possess. Providing new teachers with some PD opportunities to help lift their self-efficacy would be highly critical in their first years of teaching. Similarly, Knoblauch and Hoy (2008) state that teachers need more than content and pedagogy knowledge to allow them to be effective in teaching and gain the goals. Teachers need motivation and a sense of efficacy to be able to transfer content and pedagogy knowledge optimally.

The effects of teachers’ self-efficacy on teachers’ commitment, job satisfaction and motivation have been recognized. A study by Schepers et al. (2005) was conducted to find out if self-efficacy is related to behavioural changes that affect motivation. Schepers et al. concluded that teachers’ efficacy is the primary motivator in teachers’

work and changes the level of teachers’ motivation. Canrinus, Helms-Lorenz, Beijaard,

Buitink, and Hofman (2012) describe the effects of teachers’ self-efficacy on teachers’ commitment and job satisfaction as:

“(1) teachers’ self-efficacy contributes to teachers’ change in level of motivation,

job satisfaction, occupational commitment; (2) teachers’ job satisfaction contributes to teachers’ change in level of motivation, occupational commitment; and (3) teachers’ change in level of motivation contributes to teachers’ occupational commitment (p. 118).

Further evidence supporting the value of high efficacy beliefs among EFL teachers is provided by Chacón (2005) and Eslami and Fatahi (2008). Chacón (2005) investigated perceived level of self-efficacy of a group of 100 EFL middle school teachers in Venezuela and how this related to their self-reported English proficiency. Using the short version of the Teacher Self Efficacy Scale (TSES) by Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy (2001), and two other subscales (self-reported proficiency and pedagogical strategies), Chacón (2005) found that teachers' perceived efficacy was

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positively correlated with self-reported English proficiency. Similar results were reported by Eslami and Fatahi (2008) who also utilized TSES and the English proficiency test to investigate forty Iranian EFL teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs. Eslami and Fatahi’s study revealed that the more efficacious teachers felt, the more inclined they were to use communicative-based strategies. This study also found that the EFL teachers rated themselves as more efficacious on instructional strategies than classroom management and student engagement.

In recent years, a few studies have been conducted to investigate the link between teacher self-efficacy and teacher teaching practice in Asian countries (Ahmmed, Sharma, & Deppeler, 2014; Chong & Ong, 2016; Malinen, 2016), including one study in the Indonesian context (Kamil, Mukminin, & Kassim, 2014). Chong and Ong (2016) investigated the link between self- and collective efficacy and school academic climate on student achievement. A total of 183 teachers from five primary and secondary schools in Singapore participated in their study. Using the long version of the Teacher Self Efficacy Scale (TSES) by Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy (2001), and a School-level Environment Questionnaore, Chong and Ong (2016) found that teachers with higher perceptions of self- and collective efficacy had higher beliefs to promote organizational changes and student achievement.

Ahmmed et al. (2014) examined how teaching efficacy, attitudes and perceived support would influence primary school teachers’ intention to include students with disabilities in their classrooms. Ahmed et al.’s study involved 1387 in-service teachers from four sub-districts of Dhaka, Bangladesh by employing the School Principals’ Attitudes toward Inclusion (SPATI) scale (Bailey, 2004) and the Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices (TEIP) scale (Sharma, Loreman, & Forlin 2012). They found that Bangladeshi teachers with a higher sense of efficacy to teach in inclusive classrooms had stronger intentions to include children with disabilities in their classroom and they possessed a more positive attitude towards inclusion when compared with their counterparts with lower levels of self-efficacy in relation to inclusive education.

Another study by Kamil et al. (2014) was conducted to examine the self-efficacy of Indonesian secondary school EFL teachers in developing a school-based EFL syllabus.

25 The data were collected through a survey to 98 secondary school EFL teachers in the District of Kerinci, Jambi Sumatra, Indonesia. The results revealed that the teachers had high-self efficacy in developing the syllabus. However, they tended to be less efficacious on theoretical tasks in the syllabus development and on tasks that were not part of their responsibility in previous curricula.

It is important to note that teacher self-efficacy is a motivational construct based on the self-perception of competence rather than actual level of competence (Tschannen- Moran & Hoy, 2007). A teacher’s self-perceived level of competence may be either higher or lower than an external assessment of teaching skill. Bandura (1997) suggests that it is better when teachers slightly overestimate their actual teaching skills, as their motivation to expend efforts and to persist in facing difficult conditions will encourage them to try to do their best based on skills and capabilities they possess.

In relation to the four sources of self-efficacy (see section 2.2.3), Goddard, Hoy, and Hoy (2004) indicate that these sources of self-efficacy are important in creating collective teacher efficacy. Collective teacher efficacy is perceived as perceptions of teachers in a school or in a learning community that the efforts of a school or a learning community as a whole will have a positive effect on their practice. Goddard, Hoy and

Hoy further identify collective teacher efficacy is associated with “the tasks, level of

effort, persistence, shared thoughts, stress levels, and achievement of groups” (p. 482).

Teachers are a group and/or are members of school organizations, and therefore they share beliefs with other teachers and school administrative staff that will produce collective teacher efficacy. Zimmerman (2000) mentions the importance of collective teacher efficacy because it is related to teachers’ persistence, drive, and success. In addition, Goddard, Hoy and Hoy (2004) indicate that the major influences of collective

teacher efficacy are considered as “attributional analysis and interpretation of the four

sources of information – mastery experience, vicarious experience, social persuasion, and affective state” (p. 485).

In this study context, understanding about collective teacher efficacy is important because one of the aims of this study is to see the effects of involvement in PD/TSGs

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activities on teacher self-efficacy. TSGs and PD activities potentially create collective efficacy for teachers.

For the purpose of this study, teacher self-efficacy refers to EFL teachers’ judgments on their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action that are specific to teaching tasks and in a particular context (Bandura, 1999; Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). This definition is suitable for this study, as Bandura (1997, 1999) proposes that self-efficacy beliefs are context-specific rather than a generalized expectancy. This is also in line with methods for assessing efficacy beliefs, in which researchers have emphasized that self-efficacy relates to judgments about performing activities rather than judgments about personal qualities and that they are context dependent (Bandura, 1997).

Based on the discussion above, it is clear that self-efficacy is important for teachers because their perceptions about self-efficacy affect their teaching practice. However, further research is needed, especially in the Indonesian context, to get an understanding of how Indonesian EFL teachers perceive the importance of self-efficacy in relation to their teaching practice. Although there are a few studies about teacher self-efficacy which have been conducted in Asia (Chong & Ong, 2016; Malinen, 2016; Sharma & George, 2016), including one study in Indonesian context (Kamil et al., 2014), no study has been conducted to investigate the link between teachers’ participation in PD and their perceived level of self-efficacy within the Indonesian context.