and Woolfolk Hoy (2007) found mastery experiences made the strongest contribution to teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching. However, Usher and Pajares (2008) also warned that while mastery experiences are usually most influential, sources may become more or less important in different contexts (e.g. for various domains of activity) or for different individuals (e.g. by gender). This point has also been noted by Klassen et al. (2011) in their review of teacher efficacy research, where the authors question the extent to which the strength of these four factors is culturally specific – a key issue for consideration in studies of language teacher efficacy where respondents are often from different cultural backgrounds.
Furthermore, efficacy sources appear to act in concert with each other. Particularly, mastery experiences and social persuasion have often been found to act simultaneously as sources of efficacy beliefs (Morris & Usher, 2011; Tschannen-Moran & McMaster, 2009), perhaps because many teaching training experiences involve practice teaching (i.e. a potential mastery experience) and feedback from senior teachers, trainers or students about competency (i.e. involving social persuasion). An example comes from Morris and Usher (2011), who used semi-structured interviews to investigate the sources of efficacy for university professors who had been recognised for ‘excellence in teaching’. Although the study found that vicarious experiences and affective states were positive influences on teacher efficacy beliefs, mastery experiences and social persuasion were identified to be the most influential sources of self-efficacy. The authors suggested that mastery experiences and social persuasion were closely integrated, as ‘in the context of college teaching, appraisals of past performance are almost always informed by social persuasions’ (Morris & Usher, 2011: 243). Thus, separating the individual sources and indeed measuring them (see Morris et al., 2016) remain difficulties for teacher efficacy researchers. In fact, other researchers have included perceived mastery experiences with social persuasion as one integrated source of efficacy information. For example, in a study of 198 pre-service elementary teachers in Greece, Poulou (2007) combined mastery experiences and social persuasion based on findings of previous studies (Anderson & Betz, 2001; Lent et al., 1996; Matsui et al., 1990), which had identified personal mastery experiences and social persuasion and emotional arousal to cluster together as one factor related to direct personal experience.
Vicarious experiences have also been shown to positively influence teaching efficacy beliefs. There have been mixed results about the influence of mentors and models, with some studies showing a significant influence (Knoblauch & Woolfolk Hoy, 2008; Morris & Usher, 2011; Siwatu, 2011a), but others showing no influence (Rots et al., 2007). Simulated modelling (imagining oneself teaching) has also been identified as a significant source of information influencing positive efficacy development in pre-service science teachers (Palmer, 2006), while Bautista (2011) found that (video) observation could influence teacher efficacy beliefs by providing teachers with new ideas and skills. Furthermore, as the different sources appear to be integrated, it seems that vicarious sources are most effective when they are followed by personal experience, leading to perceptions of mastery. For example, Tschannen-Moran and McMaster (2009) found that professional development lectures could lead to a significant development in teacher efficacy if they were also followed by practice and individual feedback.
Mulholland and Wallace (2001) carried out a longitudinal case study of a teacher making the change from pre-service to in-service teaching, and showed the difficulty of understanding how the various forces influence teacher efficacy beliefs, particularly whether such sources are always positive or negative. Using narrative inquiry, the authors examined the development of a novice elementary school teacher’s self-efficacy for teaching beliefs towards science, identifying mastery experiences and social persuasion to be, overall, the strongest sources of efficacy information. However, they also noted that the various forms of information (e.g. vicarious experiences, social persuasion) acted in different ways on the teacher, sometimes as a positive influence and sometimes in a negative fashion. The study showed the difficulty of assigning one direction (i.e. positive influence) to different factors, because each factor and each source is interpreted and assigned meaning by the individuals themselves.
The separation of these sources may become more difficult as time passes and technology becomes more integrated with teacher training, leading to virtual training opportunities. Generally speaking, simulated modelling is considered a type of vicarious experience (Palmer, 2006). However, when trainees act in a virtual teaching environment with ‘avatars’ (i.e. computer-generated virtual students), such experiences appear to be much closer to ‘real’ mastery experiences. Bautista and Boone (2015) suggested that such experiences contributed towards ‘cognitive pedagogical mastery’ or pedagogic knowledge that can be used during teaching as the simulated experience helped participants to imagine themselves as successful teachers. However, it could be argued these experiences are direct and personal teaching experiences (e.g. when the individuals are confronted by avatars who ask ‘why are we doing this?’ and the teachers must respond), thus it seems clear that definitional problems may become more apparent as technology progresses and the real and virtual worlds become further interconnected.
Debate continues about whether the original definitions and conceptions of the four sources should be expanded as self-efficacy is considered in different areas, such as teaching development. In order to preserve conceptual clarity, some (e.g. Morris et al., 2016) have argued that perceptions of school support and mentoring should not be considered ‘social persuasion’ unless the experience specifically involved evaluative feedback. However, others (e.g. Wyatt, 2015: 16) have argued that the source ‘verbal persuasion’ should be expanded to include any input received from others that teachers use to ‘reflect, conceptualize or plan’, rather than only evaluative feedback. Indeed, as the evaluations of others may be inferred from the ‘messages’ that teachers receive (Chong & Kong, 2012), rather than the actual words expressed, it seems clear that the focus should be on the extent to which teachers perceive the advice, support or feedback from others as an influence on their efficacy beliefs.
Finally, another key area for attention by teacher efficacy researchers is the extent to which the development of efficacy beliefs is dependent on cultural context (Klassen et al., 2011). Efficacy sources do not automatically influence efficacy beliefs, but are weighed and assessed according to the information that individuals select and deem to be relevant (Bandura, 1997). Some research has indicated that specific sources (such as social persuasion) may be considered more strongly by teachers in different cultures (Phan & Locke, 2015), and is a factor explored in this book. Chapter 10 discusses the ways in which cultural elements of the Japanese teaching environment appear to influence the attendance of teachers towards social factors as sources of efficacy information, likely due to cultural values that emphasise a collective orientation.
2.5 Additional Factors that May Influence Efficacy Beliefs
While there is strong evidence for the four theorised sources of efficacy beliefs outlined in Section 2.4, a number of other factors have been suggested as additional sources of efficacy, or as factors that may influence efficacy. One key source is the role of content and pedagogical knowledge. As Morris et al. (2016: 22) have noted, it appears that ‘teachers’ knowledge, and their beliefs about that knowledge, can play an important role in their development of self-efficacy’ as ‘knowing the material, and knowing how to teach it well, can improve teachers’ sense of efficacy’. The importance of (perceived) content or subject-matter knowledge has been clearly shown in the research literature, with studies of science teachers showing a positive relationship between the number of science classes they had taken and their teacher efficacy beliefs towards teaching that subject (Cantrell et al., 2003; Mulholland et al., 2004). With respect to language teaching (discussed further in Chapter 3), studies have also shown that foreign language proficiency was positively related to efficacy beliefs (Chacon, 2005; Yilmaz, 2011).
However, it is also worth remembering that ‘expectation alone will not produce desired performances if the requisite competencies are lacking’ (Bandura et al., 1977: 138) as efficacy beliefs are assessed against the skills that individuals perceive to have available to them (Bandura, 1977). In other words, a certain level of knowledge and competency is required for individuals to be able to bring about successful performances. Therefore,