Novice Agriculture Teachers’ General Self Efficacy and Sense of Community Connectedness

Abstract

The attrition rate for novice teachers can range between 20%-50% in the first five years. This problem has concerned researchers in school-based agricultural education because of the shortage of agriculture teachers and high demands of the job. Researchers narrowed down the reasons why teachers leave the profession including the role of self-efficacy. While self-efficacy of novice teachers in the classroom has been researched, general self-efficacy of novice teachers has not been examined. We investigated the influence of moving into a new community and adjusting to the new culture and social connections of the new community on the teacher’s self-efficacy. The purpose was to determine if culture shock and social connectedness explained general self-efficacy of novice agriculture teachers. It was concluded that the construct of core beliefs and how people react internally to their community within the culture shock theory significantly explained a proportion of the variance in general self-efficacy. The findings implied that the culture distance experienced by a novice teacher in a new community could affect their general well-being and ability to accomplish their goals.