Chapter 6: Towards Understanding When Service-Learning Fosters Efficacy Beliefs of Preservice Teachers

All students deserve effective teachers, and students from marginalized populations especially rely upon effective teachers. Although various factors can affect teacher quality, teacher preparation programs have a major responsibility and opportunity to make a difference in helping preservice teachers become effective teachers. One of the most well-documented aspects of effective teaching is a teacher’s confidence about being able to influence students’ learning, or sense of efficacy (Henson, Kogan, & Vacha-Haase, 2001). Studies have revealed that classrooms of highly efficacious teachers are characterized by positive factors, including higher student achievement (Anderson, Greene, & Loewen, 1998; Shahid & Thompson, 2001; Woolfolk-Hoy & Davis, 2006; ); instructional innovation (Ghaith & Yaghi, 1997); persistence (Ashton, 1984); and student motivation (Tschan-nen-Moran, Woolfolk-Hoy, & Hoy, 1998). Conversely, teachers not confident tend to be pessimistic regarding students’ success, and they undermine students’ self-assessments (Pajares, 2000).