Teachers' Sense of Efficacy: A Self- or Norm-Referenced Construct?.

Two approaches to the measurement of teacher efficacv were investigated to netermine whether teachers' sense of efficacy is a selfor a norm-referenced construct. Two forms of an instrument consisting of 25 teaching prohlem situations were developed: one required self-referenced while the other reQuiren norm-referenced responses. The two forms were randomly distributen to 65 classroom teachers enrolled in graduate classes at the University of Florida. In addition, two items measuring teacher efficacy from a Rand Corporation study and the Marlowe-Crowne Scale of Social Desirability were administered. Efficacy appears to be a norm-referenced rather than a self-referenced construct. Social desirability bias was a significant factor in the use of self-referenced vignettes. Several recent studies have indicated that teachers' sense of efficacy, the extent to which a teacher helieves he or she has the capacity to affect student learning, is significantly related to student achievement (Armor, Conry-Oseauera, Cox, Kin, McDonnel, Pascal, Pauly, & Zellman, 1976; Ashton & Webb, 1982; Rerman, ~cLaughlin, Bass, Pauly, & Zellman, 1977). The work upon which this report is based was performed pursuant to Contract No. 400-79-0075 of the National Institute of Education. It does not, however, necessarily reflect the views of that agency. Ashton, Buhr, and Crocker Teacher sense of efficacy was first conceptualized in two Rand Corporation evaluation studies. The 1976 Rand study of school preferred reading programs in Los Angeles, conducted by David Armor and his colleagues, reported a strong and significant relationship between teachers' sense of efficacy and increases in students' scores on standardized reading tests. The second study was an evaluation of teachers' uses of innovations and reported that "teacher sense of efficacy is positively related to the percent of project goals achieved, the amount of teacher change, improved student performance, and continuation of both project methods and materials" (Berman et al;, 1977, p , 137). More recently, Ashton and Webb (1982) reported a significant relationship between teachers' sense of efficacy and student achievement on the Metropolitan Achievement Test in high school basic skills classes in mathematics and language. In each of these studies, teacher sense of efficacy was measured by the total score obtained from two Likert scale items: I. 'henit comes right down to it, a teacher really can't do much because most of a student's motivation and performance depends on his or her home environment. (I) Strongly agree, nor disagree, (4) agree 2. If I really try hard, I can get through to even the most difficult or unmotivated students. (I) Strongly agree, (2) Agree, (3) Neither agree nor disagree, (4) Disagree, (5) Strongly disagree If, as suggested by the research, teacher efficacy is an important teacher characteristic related to student achievement, research is needed to develop a more reliable and valid measure of the construct to enable us to clarify the nature of the construct and permit us to investigate methods for influencing the factors that contribute to teacher sense of efficacy. The purpose of this study was to investigate two approaches to the measurement of teacher efficacy to determine whether teachers' sense of efficacy is a selfor norm-referenced construct. In other words, (2) Agree, (3 ) Disagree, (5) Neither agree Strongly dis-