Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Teacher Effectiveness: Implications for Professional Development

Abstract

In an era of increasing accountability demands for teachers and students professional development will be the key to success in school reform initiatives as administrators struggle with improving the current teaching force. Research has shown that teacher efficacy is an important variable in teacher effectiveness that is consistently related to teacher behaviors and student outcomes. Furthermore, it has been shown that schools with high performance professional development integrate key dimensions that support and reinforce skill development and efficacy beliefs. It is the contention of this paper that the framework of professional development for teachers should include self-efficacy as a theoretically sound focus of training designs aimed at improving teacher competence and by extension improving student outcomes. The changes necessary to promote meaningful and substantive educational improvement are both fundamental and systemic. Because change and reform in education co ntinues to be at the political forefront, new challenges are e merging for policy makers and administrators across the country. For example, more challenging standards, high stakes testing, and school accountability are all pressuring administrators to highlight the key linkage between teacher effectiveness and student achievement. This has led to a rekindled emphasis on a timeless certainty: if students are to achieve high standards then no less can be expected of their teachers (National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future, 1996). The result has been a renewed interest in the ongoing professional development of teachers, particularly high quality in-service training, and an accompanying concern about how to design and deliver this training in w ays that improve teaching and learning. Indeed, creating stable, high-quality professional development experiences for teachers has become a major concern as communities, states, and the nation struggle with ways to improve the quality of education. The substance and outcomes of many current teacher professional development opportunities have been soundly criticized suggesting the transforation of current patterns is a critical challenge (Feistritzer, 1999). This paper argues that the teacher selfefficacy is a key driver of teacher effectiveness and should be explicitly included as a central focus in the professional development of teachers. We argue that teacher in-service training should not only develop and implement professional development activities aimed at building positive efficacy beliefs but should also use such beliefs as an indicator of training suc

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