Examining the Teacher Efficacy and Achievement Goals as Predictors of Turkish Student Teachers ’ Conceptions about Teaching and Learning

Based on the fact that the relationships among student teachers’ efficacy beliefs, achievement goals, and conceptions about teaching and learning has remained to be investigated to date, this study aimed to examine student teachers’ efficacy beliefs and achievement goals as predictors of their conceptions about teaching and learning. Results of the present study showed that student teachers’ conceptions about teaching and learning are significantly predicted by their efficacy beliefs and achievement goals. Results also demonstrated that the effects of student teachers’ efficacy beliefs and motivational beliefs on their conceptions about teaching and learning vary as a function of the fields of study, indicating that the effects of both efficacy beliefs and motivational beliefs on student teachers’ conceptions about teaching and learning are domainspecific. Overall results of the study suggested that the relationships among teacher efficacy, motivational beliefs, and conceptions about teaching and learning are not negligible. Implications for teacher education and directions for future studies were also discussed. Despite the fact that teachers’ efficacy beliefs and achievement goals have long been investigated in educational settings (Gibson & Dembo, 1984; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001; Ames, 1992; Elliot & Church, 1997; Elliot, 1999; Wang, Biddle, & Elliot, 2007), few studies directly investigated the relationship between them (Midgley, Anderman & Hicks, 1995; Deemer, 2004; Wolters & Daugherty, 2007). In fact, there is no such study, to the best of the researcher’s knowledge, in which both student teachers’ efficacy beliefs and achievement goals were examined as predictors of their conceptions about teaching and learning. However, it is important to examine teacher efficacy and achievement goals as predictors of student teachers’ conceptions about teaching and learning for at least three reasons. First, teachers’ efficacy beliefs, achievement goals, and conceptions about teaching and learning are related to important educational outcomes such as student motivation and classroom-related behaviors, each of which is important to achieve desirable educational and instructional goals in educational settings. Second, teachers’ efficacy beliefs are important to explain teachers’ adaptation and resistance to reform agendas (Pajares, 1992). Investigating the relationships among student teachers’ efficacy beliefs and their conceptions about teaching and learning would reveal important results in order to change teachers’ beliefs Australian Journal of Teacher Education Vol 34, 1, February 2009 70 in a desired way. Finally, previous research showed that teachers’ conceptions about teaching and learning are belief-driven (Chan, 2003; Chan & Elliott, 2004). Although it has been known that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and classroom goal structures are two of these beliefs (Deemer, 2004; Wolters & Daugherty, 2007), it has not been known whether the same is also true for both personal goals such as achievement goals and teachers’ efficacy beliefs. Indeed, Bobbett, Olivier, and Ellett (2008) recently showed that teachers’ efficacy beliefs and teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs are distinctly different constructs, although these concepts have long been used interchangeably. Specifically, teacher efficacy or teachers’ sense of efficacy refers to “teachers’ beliefs in their abilities to affect student performance” (Dellinger et al., 2008, p. 753) whereas teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs refer to “teachers’ beliefs in their capabilities to perform specific teaching tasks at a specified level of quality in a specified situation” (Dellinger et al., 2008, p. 753; see also Guskey & Passaro, 1994; Denzine, Cooney, & McKenzie, 2005). Classroom goal structures, on the other hand, describe the “type of achievement goal emphasized by the prevailing instructional practices and policies within a classroom, school, or other learning environment” (Wolters, 2004, p. 236), whereas achievement goals reflect achievement-related personal goals in educational settings (Elliot, 1999). A good deal of research showed that perceived classroom goal structures are positively and significantly linked to students’ achievement goals (Bong, 2001, 2008; Wolters, 2004; Meece, Anderman, & Anderman, 2006) and classroom-related behaviours (Sideridis, 2007), pointing out that students’ personal goals and perceived classroom goal structures are closely related with one another. Although these studies on the relationship between achievement goals and classroom goal structures were mainly based on the students in the classrooms, there is no reason to put the student teachers out of this relational goal framework because they also infer and pursuit the goal perceived in the classroom based on the various aspects of classroom environment such as instruction, evaluation, grouping strategies, and teaching approaches (Meece et al., 2006). Thus, one can hypothesize that student teachers’ teaching/learning-related behaviours may also be explained partly by their personal goals due to the fact that students’ perceptions of classroom goal structures are effective on personal goals. If this is the case, not only the student teachers’ perceptions of classroom goal structures, but also the effects of their personal goals on conceptions about teaching and learning should be investigated together with the effects of efficacy beliefs in order to broaden our understanding regarding the antecedents of student teachers’ teaching/learningrelated conceptions, which is an important issue in teacher education. Relevant concepts are summarized below.