Chapter 7: Teacher Self-Efficacy During COVID-19: A Qualitative Study on Experienced High School Teachers

With the entire structure of education forced to change to online learning during COVID-19, insights from Bandura’s (1997) Social Cognitive Theory, specifically teacher self-efficacy, can provide a framework to view how teachers adapted during this time. This qualitative study focused on teacher’s experiences within the four sources that have been observed to impact self-efficacy, including mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, social persuasion, and physiological state (Usher & Pajares, 2006). Seven teachers with at least ten or more years of experience in a public high school were interviewed for this research. This study observed that each teacher was impacted, to varying degrees, in each of the four sources of self-efficacy between March 2020 and June 2022. The most impacted sources of self-efficacy among all participants were with mastery experiences, social persuasion, and personal physiological state. This study’s findings suggest that the amount of support from schools and leadership played a significant role in how well teachers were able to regain their self-efficacy beliefs to where they were pre-COVID. In addition, results found that teachers who had an adaptable growth mindset toward teaching were more likely to easily rebound from self-efficacy loss. Based on these findings, school districts should evaluate what kinds of support they provide to teachers, both pre- and post-COVID. Focusing on what teachers need most, considerations should potentially address emotional adaptability and wellness opportunities to help teachers not only recover from the lingering effects of COVID-19, but also the everyday changes they face in the classroom.