The Teachers’ Efficacy Beliefs System—Self (TEBS-Self)

In addition to the OSTES measuring teacher self-efficacy, recently another new American measure of teacher self-efficacy, the Teachers’ Efficacy Beliefs System—Self Form (TEBS-Self), was constructed with a purpose to assess teachers’ beliefs about their capacities to conduct important teaching tasks within teachers’ classroom context (Dellinger et al., 2008). Moreover, it was claimed that the measure was developed in attempts to overcome those shortcomings indicated in the past measurements (e.g. a lack of conceptualization of teacher self-efficacy, a lack of specificity and generality of teaching tasks, and negligence of the context in which beliefs are formed). As a result, the TEBS-Self laid its theoretical foundation on Bandura’s self-efficacy theory and related studies in effective teaching and learning (Davis, 2000; Ellett, 1999; Ellett et al., 2002). Teaching tasks were selected based on the PACES, an assessment of teaching and learning within the context of classroom, and the tasks were demonstrated to be able to lead students into a better learning (Dellinger et al., 2008).

In total, the TEBS-Self consists of 30 items and is composed of four to five factors—accommodation of individual difference, classroom management, clarification and feedback from teachers, higher order thinking skills, and motivation of students— identified by means of confirmatory factor analysis across three studies.

Sample items are displayed in the following.

Right now in my present teaching situation, the strength of my personal beliefs in

my capabilities to…

♦ implement teaching methods at an appropriate pace to accommodate differences among my students (accommodation of individual difference)

♦ effectively manage routines and procedures for learning tasks (classroom management)

♦ clarify student misunderstandings or difficulties in learning (clarification from teachers)

♦ actively involve students in critical analysis and/or problem solving (higher order thinking skills)

♦ motivate students to perform to their fullest potential (motivation of students)

Though the TEBS-Self has addressed several issues raised in the teacher self-efficacy studies, more studies need to be conducted to assure the validity and reliability of this measure. It should be noted that the factors generated from three studies, i.e. Oliver (2000), Bobbett, (2001), and Delliinger (2001), adopting the TEBS-Self mentioned in Dellinger et al. (2008) have not yet arrived at an agreement.

Additionally, there is an imbalance between the amounts of items displayed under each factor. For example, in Dellinger’s (2001) study there are five items constructed under the category of accommodation of individual difference, whereas only three items were developed for the category of classroom management. A reasonable justification is required to explain this distribution.

Furthermore, by making a comparison between the TEBS-Self and the OSTES, it is considered that the OSTES seems to be a better teacher self-efficacy instrument due to the following two reasons. First, although an overlap was found between the teaching tasks selected by these two scales, the OSTES demonstrated a much more reliable result with regard to the factors generated from confirmatory factor analysis

across studies, with three factors in total, and a much more balanced item distribution under each subscale, with 8 items for each. Second, unlike the TEBS-Self appears as a new instrument in teacher self-efficacy research, the OSTES has been frequently adopted by many other researchers in the field of education and its reliability and validity have been proven. As a result, the OSTES is selected as the instrument of teacher self-efficacy employed in the present study.

Last but not least, while the TEBS-Self as a teacher self-efficacy measure still needs a further exploration, it is worthy to be noted that some of the essential teaching tasks selected by the TEBS-Self indeed reflect an effective teaching practice.

Therefore, some of the teaching tasks have been successfully modified into items for the measure of teachers’ motivational teaching behaviors in the present study.

Detailed information is provided in chapter 3.

Because there are too many measures of efficacy mentioned in this chapter, Table 1 is displayed to summarize those measures.

Table 1. Summary of Measures of Efficacy Instrument Key Concepts &

Structure

Rand item 1. “When it comes right down to it, a teacher really can’t do much because most of a student’s motivation and performance depends on his or her home environment.”

Rand item 2. “If I really try hard, I can get through to even the most difficult or unmotivated students.”

When a student gets a better grade than he usually gets, it is usually because I found better ways of teaching.

The hours in my class have little influence on students compared to the influence of their home environment.

Bandura’s to create a positive school climate

Structure: 30 items on a 9-point Likert scale

How much can you influence the decisions that are made in your school?

How much can you do to make students enjoy coming to school?

How much can you do to get students to believe they can do well in

schoolwork?

To what extent can you use a variety of assessment strategies?

How much can you do to control disruptive behavior in the classroom?

How much can you do to motivate students who show low interest in schoolwork? Structure: 30 items on a

Right now in my present teaching situation, the strength of my personal beliefs in my capabilities to…

---effectively manage routines and procedures for learning tasks

---implement teaching methods at an appropriate pace to accommodate differences among my students

---clarify student misunderstandings

4-point Likert scale or difficulties in learning

2.2 Research in Antecedents and Consequences of Teacher Self-Efficacy Beliefs The research framework of teachers’ self-efficacy, as illustrated in Tschannen-Moran & Hoy’s (1998) cyclic model (Figure 3), has been formed centering on the issues of the effects of potent antecedents on the formation of teachers’

self-efficacy beliefs and the impact of teachers’ perception of their self-efficacy beliefs on the subsequent outcomes and performances. According to Tschannen-Moran & Hoy (2007), there is theoretical and practical importance to enrich the knowledge of the key sources and factors teachers consider when making self-efficacy judgments in the instruction since the better understanding of the antecedents provides teachers, educators, and principals with an opportunity to strengthen teachers’ perceived self-efficacy in a more efficient way. Moreover, understanding the relationship between teachers’ perceived self-efficacy and the reflected outcomes can help us sketch the outline of the teachers’ teaching behaviors in advance and involve an intervention if it is necessary in the right time. In the next section, a review of studies begins with the antecedents of self-efficacy beliefs, and then follows by studies with regard to the consequences of teachers’ self-efficacy.