Should I Teach Here? Teacher Perceptions of Organizational Goal Structures in the Age of Accountability

• In Event: Lives of Teachers Roundtable

Abstract

This exploratory case study considers teachers’ place-based self-efficacy within the context of a reform-oriented professional development (PD) program implemented in a majority-minority, Title I school with a high share of English learner (EL)-identified students. We describe how self-efficacy serves as an explanatory mechanism to explore leadership and workplace conditions factor into teachers’ professional decision-making processes in an accountability-driven context. Focal participants reported that validation of internal goals proved more important to their place-based self-efficacy than those defined externally by the district. Although teachers reported that district accountability measures constrained their instructional efficacy, they alternately noted that workplace conditions and school leaders protected their place-based self-efficacy. More research is necessary to understand how instructional contexts inform teachers’ place-based self-efficacy.

Authors

• Danielle Lindo, The University of Texas at Austin

• Rebecca M. Callahan, University of Vermont