Exploring the Domain-Specificity of Teacher Efficacy Beliefs (Poster 13)

• In Event: AERA Poster Session One
  In Poster Session: Cognitive and Motivational Processes: Poster Session One

Abstract

Early childhood and elementary teachers are responsible for teaching multiple subjects, yet comparisons of their academic domain-specific teaching self-efficacy have been limited. We took an exploratory approach to analyzing 124 teachers’ responses to a set of related teacher self-efficacy scales: the STEBI, the MTEBI, and the T-STEM CT. A four-factor solution was found to have the best fit, with the following factors: Outcome Expectancies, Computational Thinking Self-Efficacy, Mathematics Self-Efficacy, and Science Self-Efficacy. These findings suggest that outcome expectancy beliefs about teaching are more general, while self-efficacy beliefs are domain-specific. Researchers can reduce response fatigue by eliminating separate scales for outcome expectancies and better craft and interpret studies of early grades teachers’ self-efficacy, its sources, and its impacts.

Authors

• Meghan M. Parkinson, University of North Florida
  Presenting Author

• Natalie Wright, CIC Planning Group
  Non-Presenting Author

• Heather Rogers Haverback, Towson University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Raven Robinson-Wilson, University of North Florida
  Non-Presenting Author

• Rui Wang, University of North Florida
  Non-Presenting Author