Teacher self-efficacy: how confident are you in your own teaching?

Self-efficacy is the belief that you can do what a situation asks of you. The psychologist Albert Bandura introduced the idea in 1977, and it has become one of the most studied concepts in education. For teachers it has a narrower meaning: how sure you are that you can reach your students, including the ones who are hard to reach.

This applies to anyone who teaches. A school teacher, a university lecturer, a corporate trainer and a coach all stand in front of people who may or may not want to learn.

Why it matters

Research reviewed by Megan Tschannen-Moran, Anita Woolfolk Hoy and Wayne Hoy (1998) linked higher teacher efficacy with more persistence with students who struggle and more willingness to try new teaching methods. Einar and Sidsel Skaalvik (2007) found that teachers with lower self-efficacy reported more burnout. These are correlations, and they run both ways: confidence helps you teach well, and teaching well builds confidence.

The belief also has to be roughly accurate. A teacher who overrates themselves stops looking for better methods. A teacher who underrates themselves gives up on a class that could still be won over.

Three areas, three different confidences

In 2001 Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy proposed that teacher efficacy has three parts. You can feel strong in one and unsure in another.

• Student engagement. Can you get people interested who arrived uninterested, and help them see why the material matters to them?
• Instructional strategies. When your first explanation does not land, do you have a second one? Can you adjust a task so that faster and slower learners both get something from it?
• Classroom management. Can you bring a restless group back on track, and calm a situation when someone acts out?

A new teacher is often confident with content and unsure about managing a room. A teacher with twenty years behind them may manage any room but feel stuck with a group that does not care about the subject.

About our test

The Teacher Self-Efficacy Test has 12 statements, four for each area, and takes about three minutes. We wrote the statements ourselves, based on Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy's three-part model. It is not the questionnaire from their paper and it has not been validated, so it is meant for self-reflection. Your result is for you, and nobody should use it to grade a teacher.

The most useful part of the result is usually the gap between your strongest and weakest area. That gap tells you where to put your next bit of effort.

How confidence grows

Bandura described four sources of self-efficacy. The strongest is mastery experience: doing something and seeing it work. Then come watching someone similar to you succeed, encouragement from people you trust, and how you read your own nerves and energy.

For a teacher that suggests some practical steps. Try one new technique in your weakest area with an easy group first. Sit in on a colleague whose classes run the way you would like yours to. Ask a trusted colleague what they see you doing well.

Related tests

For a broader measure, the general self-efficacy test (GSES) uses a published, validated scale about confidence in any area of life. Teaching is demanding work, and the burnout test shows how much of that demand you are carrying. For more on the warning signs, read burnout: 3 dimensions and how to prevent them.