Exploring Changes in Teacher Efficacy Through a Professional Development Program in Trinidad and Tobago

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 35
  In Roundtable Session: Examining Teacher Efficacy and Politicized Curriculums in Belize, Africa, and the Caribbean

Abstract

Strengthening teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs requires developing their knowledge, skills and effectiveness through on-going and sustained professional development. This study explored changes in the teacher efficacy of 188 secondary school teachers during a 10-month in-service professional development programme at a university in Trinidad and Tobago. Data were collected using the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001). RM-MANOVA revealed a significant increase in teacher efficacy, but this difference was not associated with the interaction of participants’ sex, school type and experience. This study attended to the paucity of teacher efficacy research in Trinidad and Tobago, and the findings provide directions for exploring the long-term effects of professional development on participants’ teacher efficacy.

Author

• Sharon Jacqueline Jaggernauth, The University of the West Indies