Chapter 5: Teacher Self-Efficacy and Its Influence on the Achievement of Adolescents

Teachers’ sense of efficacy is a judgment about capabilities to influence student engagement and learning, even among those students who may be difficult or unmotivated. Early definitions of teacher self-efficacy were “the extent to which the teacher believes he or she has the capacity to affect student performance” (Berman, McLaughlin, Bass, Pauly, & Zellman, 1977, p. 137) and “teachers’ belief or conviction that they can influence how well students learn, even those who may be difficult or unmotivated” (Guskey & Passaro, 1994, p. 4). Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy, and Hoy’s (1998) definition emphasized the situation-specific nature of self-efficacy: “Teacher efficacy is the teacher’s belief in her or his ability to organize and execute the courses of action required to successfully accomplish a specific teaching task in a particular context” (p. 233). A recent review by Labone (2004) encouraged researchers to include tasks beyond the classroom and the context of school reform in the specific tasks and contexts that are the foci of efficacy judgments.