Sources of Self-Efficacy in Teachers

Abstract

Teacher's self-efficacy is the judgment that teachers make about their own ability and skills in teaching, even in unfavorable conditions. A teacher's sense of efficacy can be influenced by four sources of information: mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal or social persuasion, and emotional and physiological factors. This study aims to characterize basic education teachers, considering the indexes of the self-efficacy sources, sociodemographic aspects (like age, sex and education level of teachers), and teaching activity (working time and period of time). A total of 495 basic education teachers, who work in a private confessional network of schools in the states of Pará, Maranhão and Amapá (Brazil) participated in this study, from January to July 2014. As data collection, researchers used the Participant Characterization Survey (Questionário de Caracterização do Participante) and the Teacher Self-Efficacy Sources Scale (Escala de Fontes de Autoeficácia de Docentes). The statistical techniques used were factorial analysis and correspondence analysis. The results indicated that there was a significant association among the four sources of self-efficacy. There was a correlation between verbal persuasion and length of service and function. From the sociodemographic characteristics investigated, only age has been correlated to emotional and physiological factors. There was no association between age and the others sources.