Efficacy Beliefs of College Instructors

Two types of efficacy beliefs have been identified as integral to the practice of education; these are teacher efficacy and collective efficacy. The purpose of this study was to provide an exploratory investigation of teacher and collective efficacy at the college level. We specifically investigated the relationship of teacher and collective efficacy to a series of variables which included experience, professional level, age, gender, academic domain (for teacher efficacy only) and academic department (for collective efficacy only). We also investigated the relationship between collective and teacher efficacy among this population. The sample consisted of 117 graduate students, lecturers, and faculty from a Research I university in the mid-Atlantic region. Statistical analyses revealed no significant differences in teacher efficacy with regard to prior experience, professional level, or age. Differences in teacher efficacy were found with respect to gender and academic domain. Differences in collective efficacy were not found across departments, experience, or professional levels. However, teacher efficacy was significantly correlated with collective efficacy. These findings demonstrate the unique nature of teaching at the college level and suggest directions for implications and future research. Introduction Efficacy beliefs refer to judgments regarding the ability to perform actions required to achieve desired outcomes (Bandura, 1977, 1986, 1997). Two types of efficacy beliefs have been identified as integral to the practice of education; these are teacher efficacy and collective efficacy. Teacher efficacy refers to “the teacher’s belief in his or her capability to organize and execute courses of action required to successfully accomplish a specific teaching task in a particular context” (Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy, & Hoy, 1998, p. 233). Collective efficacy refers to a group’s combined or joint belief in their ability as a collective to achieve desired outcomes (Bandura, 1997). While teacher efficacy has long been identified as a crucial construct in the research on teachers and teaching, collective efficacy has just recently begun to receive attention with regard to its role in educational settings (see Goddard, 2001 for a review). Additionally, very few studies have investigated the impact of teacher efficacy in the population of college level instructors (e.g., Heppner, 1992; Preito & Meyers, 1999; Young & Kline, 1996) and only one that we have found has addressed the role of collective efficacy with this population (Loup, Clarke, & Ellett, 1997). In a time when more and more students are coming to the university and concerns such as grade inflation, plagiarism, and academic dishonesty are becoming more salient, it seems pertinent that we begin to look at the professionals who guide the learning process at this level. That is, we need to specifically focus on the structure and make up of college instructors’ beliefs about their teaching abilities. One expects that the role of teachers at the college level is distinct from the role of those who work with younger students in a mandatory school setting. Still, we can learn from the research conducted with the traditional teaching population and find linkages to how this work may serve to improve education at the college level. However, in order to make these leaps we must first gain an understanding of individual and collective beliefs of college level instructors. Once this information is gleaned we can then begin to determine how the construct of efficacy can be used to understand and potentially improve the teaching processes of these teachers. To better understand the potential role of efficacy beliefs at the college level it is important to review what we currently know about teacher and collective efficacy. Therefore, the sections that follow provide a brief overview of each construct. Following these overviews a review of the studies that have investigated efficacy beliefs among college level instructors will be given. Finally, the specific aspects and finding s of the current study are explained. Teacher Efficacy Determining a definition and conceptual meaning of the teacher efficacy construct continues to bring about much discussion in the literature (see Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy, & Hoy, 1998 for a complete review). The primary opponents in this discussion are those (e.g., Guskey and Passaro, 1994) who interpret teacher efficacy from a locus of control foundation as proposed by Rotter (1966) in contrast to those (e.g., Tschannen-Moran et. al., 1998) who favor an understanding of this construct based on the work of Bandura’s (1977) social cognitive theory. The current work follows the latter trajectory and is grounded in Bandura’s (1977) social cognitive theory of self-efficacy, which has come to play a dominant role in the teacher efficacy literature. Bandura (1993) presents the construct of self-efficacy as the beliefs one has about his or her ability to perform the actions required to achieve specific outcomes. This construct is expected to serve as the key mediator between knowledge and action. Based on the works of Bandura, Pajares (1992) concluded that "beliefs are the best indicators of the decisions individuals make throughout their lives" (p. 307). Thus, it follows that teachers’ beliefs about their personal teaching abilities are a key indicator of teacher behavior, decisions, and classroom organization. Therefore, in the teaching context, teacher efficacy is expected to affect the goals teachers identify for the learning context as well as to guide the amounts of effort and persistence given to the task. Pajares (1992) also remarked that while much research has been done on how teachers think, this has been fruitless in determining expectations of teachers’ actions. In contrast, knowledge of teacher beliefs (e.g., teacher efficacy) has had powerful predictive powers with respect to teacher performance and student achievement outcomes (Pajares, 1992). For instance, teacher efficacy plays a role in the goals teachers set for themselves and their students, how motivated teachers are to create a positive learning environment, how much effort they expend in teaching students, and how teachers react when faced with difficult situations (Bandura, 1993). Teacher efficacy has been found to be related to such variables as student achievement (e.g., Anderson, Greene, & Loewen, 1988), student motivation (e.g., Midgley, Feldlaufer, & Eccles, 1989), teachers’ willingness to adapt innovations (e.g., Smylie, 1988), teacher effectiveness (e.g., Gibson & Dembo, 1984; Woolfolk & Hoy, 1990), and teacher stress (e.g., Parkay, Greenwood, Olejnik, & Proller, 1988) to name a few. Furthermore, certain dimensions of teacher efficacy have been correlated with teachers’ willingness to experiment in the classroom (McLaughlin & March, 1978), the likelihood of teachers referring low socioeconomic status students and/or students with behavior problems to special services (e.g., Meijer & Foster, 1988; Podell & Soodak, 1993; Soodak & Podell, 1993), and student interest in school (Tschannen-Moran et. al, 1998). Researchers have also investigated the differences in teacher efficacy beliefs across experience or expertise levels. Much work has investigated the differences between preservice and inservice teachers’ levels of efficacy. Some work has confirmed the claim that teacher efficacy is highest among pre-service teachers and that this level of efficacy drops, often drastically, during the first year of teaching (Brousseau, Book, & Byers, 1988; Soodak & Podell, 1997). The work of Brousseau and colleagues (1988) suggests that this high level of efficacy continues to drop as experience is gained, a result that is also found in the work of Anderson, Greene, and Loewen (1988). In contrast, Soodak and Podell (1997) found that after the drop during the first year of teaching, there is a consistent increase in efficacy beliefs with experience. However, these beliefs never again reach the high, perhaps inflated, levels found in pre-service teachers. Moreover, Soodak and Podell (1997) also found that these extreme highs and lows did not exist for the secondary teachers in their sample. In fact, these researchers report that the secondary teachers were significantly more homogenous in their efficacy beliefs and were less efficacious overall as compared to elementary teachers (Soodak and Podell, 1997). Other researchers have found that the relationship between efficacy and experience is more positive. For example, Gorrell and Dhamadasa (1994) found that preservice and inservice Sri Lankan teachers have distinctly different levels of efficacy for particular tasks. Pre-service teachers were found to have higher levels of efficacy for the use of new techniques and implementing new methods of instruction. Inservice teachers, however, were found to have higher efficacy for classroom management, organization of instruction, and having a positive impact on students (Gorrell & Dhamadsa, 1994). Cambell (1996) found higher efficacy among teachers who were experienced, older, and who had higher education than pre-service teachers. Collective Efficacy Bandura (1997) defines collective efficacy as “a group’s shared belief in its conjoint capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given levels of attainments” (p. 477). Similar to an individual’s sense of personal efficacy, the collective efficacy beliefs of groups can affect their goal setting, motivation, effort, and persistence with challenging tasks or situations. Within the context of this study, one can consider an academic department to consist of instructors who work together, to some degree, in a collective environment to enhance academic capabilities of students. Instructors’ sense of collective efficacy, therefore, may influence a department’s ability to overcome challenging situations, set app