Ashton’s vignette The Gibson and Dembo’s teacher efficacy scale

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2.2.2.4 Ashton’s vignette

As an attempt to address the assumption that teacher efficacy was context specific, Ashton and her colleague devised norm-referenced vignettes describing situations a teacher might encounter in their teaching duties Ashton Webb, 1986. Using these vignettes, they also asked teachers to make judgments on their effectiveness in handling the situations. Two frameworks of judgement were tested in this research. The first was developed by asking the teachers to rate their performance on a scale from extremely ineffective to extremely effective. The second judgement was made by asking teachers to compare their performance to those of other teachers. They had to judge themselves from much less effective than most teachers to much more effective to most other teachers.

2.2.2.5 The Gibson and Dembo’s teacher efficacy scale

In the early 1980s, when early researchers on efficacy worked on the development of the efficacy construct, Gibson and Dembo developed the teacher efficacy scale TES Gibson Dembo, 1984. Although it was built on the formulation of the Rand studies, it was also underpinned conceptually by Bandura‘s model of self-efficacy. TES was a two-factor scale consisting of 30 items developed to measure teacher efficacy. These factors were personal teaching efficacy and teaching efficacy. According to Gibson and Dembo 1984 the two factors reflected the two expectancies of Bandura‘s social cognitive theory. The first factor, the personal teaching efficacy was seen to reflect the self- 39 efficacy, while the second factor, the teaching efficacy reflected the outcome expectancy Gibson Dembo, 1984. Other researchers are still working on teacher self-efficacy beliefs using slightly different perspectives on what teachers‘ efficacy is. Some researchers suggest that teacher self- efficacy is teachers‘ judgment of their capability to bring about a desired outcome of students‘ engagement and learning, even among those students who may be difficult and unmotivated Bandura, 1977b; Tschannen- Moran Hoy, 2001. It is not the beliefs on what to teach but the beliefs on the ability to execute specific teaching-related tasks. Rand researchers defined teachers‘ efficacy as the extent to which teachers believe that they could control the reinforcement of their actions that is whether control of reinforcement lies within them or the environment Armor et al., 1976. There are even differences among researchers in terms of using the terms for this belief. Some use terms like general teaching efficacy Ashton et al., 1982 or simply teaching efficacy Gibson Dembo, 1984; W. K. Hoy Woolfolk, 1993 and personal teaching efficacy Ashton Webb, 1986; Gibson Dembo, 1984 or simply teaching efficacy W. K. Hoy Woolfolk, 1993.

2.2.2.6 The Ohio State teacher efficacy scale OSTES