209
assessment criteria. The effects of the change in the teaching paradigm brought about different teaching practices from those the teachers had used in the old
curriculum. This possibly diminished the sense of efficacy among the participants.
6.4 The effects of demographic factors on the teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs
Five types of demographic data were included as the independent variables in the present study. They were gender, age, English teaching background,
teaching experience and teacher status. MANOVA, however, did not find significant contribution of English teaching background and teacher status.
The first significant effect was found in the differences in gender. It indicated that differences in the level of teachers‘ efficacy beliefs had something to do
with differences in gender. The findings were interesting because so far there have not been an agreement among researchers in terms of the contribution of
gender on teachers‘ self-efficacy beliefs. Some researchers have suggested that female teachers tended to have higher self-efficacy beliefs J. A. Ross, 1994;
Shahid Thomson, 2001. On the other hand, other researchers have suggested that male teachers tended to show higher levels of confidence Imants De
Brabander, 1996; Silver, Mitchell, Gist, 1995. Equally, Tscannen-Moran Hoy 2002 have suggested that the effect of gender would only show up in
research with a large sample Tschannen-Moran Hoy, 2002. Tschannen- Moran Hoy 2007 also suggested that the inclusion of demographic variables
210
was only to act as a control because there was no theoretical reason to suspect that they necessarily related to self-efficacy.
In the present study, male teachers showed higher efficacy beliefs than the females Figure 6.2. The most appropriate explanation for these findings was
once again related to the perceived control over the students in teaching. This is due to the perception that successful teaching was considered related to success
in controlling the students, in which male teachers tended to be more confident.
Figure 6.2 Gender differences in teachers’ efficacy beliefs
There has been no research suggesting that differences in age have made significant contribution to
teachers‘ self-efficacy beliefs. Although a number of researchers have included age as one of the demographic factors Cruz Arias,
2007; Skaalvik Skaalvik, 2007; Wolters Daugherty, 2007, they have normally treated it as a control variable. Findings of the present study suggest
that although differences in age contributed significantly to the differences in
211
teachers‘ self-efficacy beliefs, there was no evidence that self-efficacy increased with age, or vice versa. This study has shown
that teachers‘ self-efficacy fluctuated as a function of age Figure 6.3, and that self-efficacy was lower
among younger teachers those younger than 30 years, and then increased among teachers between 30-40 years of age. It then decreased again among
those older than 40 years of age and reached the peak when people were above 50 years of age. Further analysis using the Tukey post hoc, however, suggested
that the significant differences were only between the first group, teachers younger than 30 years of age, and the teachers in the other age group. No
significant differences were found among the other three groups of teacher, those older than 30 years of age.
Explanations regarding these findings are further confirmed by the findings suggesting that although differences in age contributed significantly to the
differences in the level of efficacy, such significant differences were not found in the entire groups created by categorical variables, in this case in all age
groups, but only between the first age group and the other three age groups. There were no significant effects of age on the other three groups. It was
therefore assumed that teache rs‘ efficacy increased at in the early age period
and then remained stable once teachers were above thirty years of age. These findings confirmed earlier research claiming that self-efficacy beliefs were
fairly stable once established Bandura, 1977a; Tschannen-Moran Hoy, 2007.
212
Figure 6.3 Teachers’ self efficacy as a function of age
4.4 4.77
4.71 4.79
4 4.5
5
30 years 30 - 40 years
41 - 50 years 50 years
Teaching experience was also found to be related to teachers‘ self-efficacy. Differences in the amount of time in teaching contributed to differences in the
level of self-efficacy beliefs. However, it appeared that differences in teaching experiences did not produce a
linear correlation with the level of teachers‘ self- efficacy beliefs. Teachers‘ self-efficacy beliefs appeared to increase up to a
certain point of teaching experience and then started to decline. The data suggested that teachers‘ efficacy beliefs were the highest among the group of
teachers who had teaching experiences between five and fifteen years, then dropped away again until the age of retirement Figure 6.4.
213
Figure 6 .4 Contribution of teaching experience to differences in teachers’
self-efficacy beliefs
These findings suggest that the lower sense of efficacy among teachers with less than five year teaching experiences was in a sense predictable. This was due to
their lack of mastery experiences. In addition, the first five years in teaching is a critical period when novice teachers might face reality shock Weinstein, 1988;
Wheatley, 2005 due to the complexity of teaching duties and are thus forced to recalibrate the meaning of good and successful teaching Tschannen-Moran
Hoy, 2007. This early period in the teaching profession is also a time where novice teachers re-evaluate their perception of their own teaching ability to a
level that low enough for them to turn their confidence into a certain level of doubt.
Although the findings suggest that it was not statistically significant, the lower level of efficacy beliefs reported by the most experienced teachers in the
sample, those with more than fifteen years teaching experience, was interesting.
214
This was because a number of research study have indicated that teacher s‘ sense
of efficacy is fairly stable once it has become set, so that it would not necessarily increase along with the increase of teaching experience Tschannen-
Moran Hoy, 2007. Although it did not have to be increasing with the teaching experience, the weakening of efficacy beliefs among more experienced
teachers seemed to be somewhat strange.
It might be argued that the reason behind this was related to the specific context and specific time of the data collection. As required by the research design,
teachers in the sample were those who had attended the CBIT. In addition, at the time the data were collected, the participants were at the beginning of
implementing a new curriculum with a new approach in teaching English. This was perhaps why experienced teachers, who were normally older, felt that they
were not very confident in coping with the change, and therefore they rated themselves slightly lower.
Another interesting idea might be raised in relation to the contribution of both age and teaching experience on the level of teachers‘ self-efficacy. Because
both factors resulted in the same pattern of change, it seemed to be reasonable to state that there
was an overlap between the contribution of teachers‘ age and teaching experience on the teachers‘ self-efficacy, especially that of young
teachers and teachers with less time in teaching. In this case, it was difficult to positively assert whether such cha
nges in the teachers‘ efficacy was a function of differences in age but not teaching experience or vice versa.
215
6.5 The effects of task settings on the teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs
