Measuring the Sources of Teaching Self-Efficacy: A Review of Emerging Scholarship

• In Event: Evaluating the Psychometric Quality of Self-Efficacy Measures With Diverse Item-Analysis Methods

Abstract

Ample research has documented that teachers’ perceptions of efficacy–the beliefs they hold about their instructional capabilities– influence not only their own motivation and performance, but also the motivation and achievement of their students (Woolfolk Hoy & Davis, 2006). Given the considerable benefits associated with teachers’ self-efficacy, researchers have begun to turn their attention toward the sources underlying these important beliefs.
According to Bandura’s (1986, 1997) social cognitive theory, individuals develop their self-efficacy by attending to four sources of capability-related information. These include mastery experiences (i.e., interpretations of past performances), vicarious experiences (i.e., witnessing the successes and failures of others), social persuasions (i.e., messages that one receives from others) and physiological and affective states (e.g., stress, fatigue, mood). The purpose of this review is to critically examine existing measures of the sources of teaching self-efficacy and to provide considerations for the development of future scales.
A number of methodological shortcomings in the literature have prevented a clear understanding of how teachers form their efficacy beliefs. First, some measures of the sources have been developed using samples of preservice teachers (e.g., Kieffer & Henson, 2002; Poulou, 2007). Such a practice limits the generalizability of findings, as the influence of the sources on self-efficacy can vary as a function of experience (Bandura, 1997; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2007).
Items used to gauge the sources have often been inconsistent with social cognitive theory or poorly worded. For example, some scholars have assessed social persuasions as “interpersonal support” (e.g., Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2007), which fails to capture “social evaluations of capability” (Bandura, 1997, p. 102).
Moreover, no psychometrically sound scale exists that incorporates all four hypothesized sources. Studies in which the four sources have been measured have been undermined by (a) small sample sizes, (b) tenuous combinations of sources items into unidimensional subscales, (c) psychometric problems with traditional factor analytic approaches (e.g., Heppner, 1994; Keiffer & Henson, 2000; Poulou, 2007)
No investigation of the sources is complete without consideration of teachers’ efficacy, or competency. Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy’s (2001) Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale centers on three competencies: the ability to utilize different instructional strategies, the ability to manage a class effectively, and the ability to engage students. Researchers must ask if there are additional competencies that teachers consider in evaluating their capabilities, such as capability to enact culturally relevant pedagogy (Siwatu, 2007) or inspire higher-order thinking (Dellinger et al., 2008). Once the specific competencies are defined, measures of the sources should be designed accordingly.
Researchers who wish to explore the sources of teaching self-efficacy must consider the quality (positive or negative, profound or mild) and quantity (number of times an individual experiences an event) of a given source, as well as the ways in which it is construed. Many researchers have developed items that are exclusive to quality, quantity or construal bias (Gurvitch & Metzler, 2009; Kieffer & Henson, 2000; Woolfolk Hoy & Burke-Spero, 2005). A more integrated and purposeful approach is necessary to advance understandings of the origins of teaching self-efficacy.

Author

• David Brent Morris, Saint Mary's College of Maryland