Impact of Demographic Variables in the Development of Teachers’ Self-Efficacy Beliefs in the Context of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Teacher self-efficacy is one of the important variables to bring change in students’ learning. The current study aimed to assess teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs on four sub-scales; namely, classroom management, persistent behaviour, classroom anxiety and professional mastery, in the context of Saudi Arabia. The key objective of the study was to determine teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs on these sub-scales in relation to gender, age, professional qualification, level of teaching, and job experience. A random sample of 168 male and 106 female teachers was selected from two public and two private schools in Jeddah. A Teachers’ Self- Efficacy Beliefs scale developed by Shaukat (2011) was administered to collect data from teachers; the results for this study reported .89 overall reliability of the scale, .72 for classroom management, .73 for persistent behaviour, .66 for classroom anxiety and .76 for professional mastery. Data were analysed using the t-test and ANOVA to determine the impact of demographic variables on the four sub-scales of self-efficacy beliefs. Results showed significant differences between the self-efficacy beliefs of male and female teachers; BA, MA and PhD qualified teachers; primary and elementary and secondary school teachers; and public and private teachers with regard to classroom management, persistent behaviour, classroom anxiety and professional mastery. This study has possible implications for policy makers and teacher educators.