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previous findings suggesting that teacher attributions of causality were dependent on the nature of classroom and performance outcomes, separate scores were
obtained for success and failure situations.
Rose and Medway reported that the TLC scale was internally consistent and yielded a higher correlation with classroom teaching behavior than the more
generalized Rotter‘s I-E scale. In addition, because TLC was more classroom specific, It was mo
re predictive than the Rotter‘s I-E scale Rose Medway, 1981.
2.2.1.4 The Web b’s Scale
The Web scale was developed at the same time as the RSA and TLC were developed. It was introduced by Webb and his colleagues and was proposed as an
attempt to expand the reliability of the Rand items. Besides, it was also aimed to extend the measure of teacher efficacy while maintaining a narrow
conceptualization of the construct Ashton, Olejnik, Crocker, McAuliffe, 1982.
2.2.2 Teacher efficacy belief: Second theoretical strand
2.2.2.1 Social cognitive theory and self-efficacy
As it is evidenced that the second strand of the self-efficacy concept was based on the social cognitive theories, it is worth looking at how the concept of efficacy
beliefs was drawn from such theory. Albert Bandura, who has been at the frontier of the development of self-beliefs research, had invested the initial theoretical
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foundation of self-efficacy beliefs. In his Social Cognitive theory he assumed that the capability of human agency operates in a triadic reciprocal causation
Bandura, 1986. In this model, human functioning was viewed as being influenced by the dynamic interplay of personal factors in the forms of cognition,
affect and biological events, behavioral factors, and the environment. Further, this multi-directional reciprocal causation suggested that the individual agency was a
product of a combination of three interrelated forces of environmental influences, human behavior and internal factors as well as biological processes. By stating
that an individual is simultaneously an agent and an object, social cognitive theory rejects the previously proposed dualistic view of self, as an agent when
they act on the environment and an object when they reflect and act on themselves Bandura, 1997.
Central to Ban dura‘s Social Cognitive theory was the concept of self-efficacy
which was originally defined as a specific type of expectancy related to one‘s beliefs about one
‘s ability to perform a specific behavior or set of behaviors required to produce a certain outcome Bandura, 1977b, 1982, 1986. However,
the concept w as extended to people‘s beliefs about their ability to exercise control
over events that affect their lives Bandura, 1989, and was further extended even to embrace the beliefs in their capabilities to mobilize the motivation, cognitive
resources and course of action needed to exercise control over task demands Bandura, 1990. Self-efficacy was, therefore, not just self-judgment of what one
could do with whatever skills one possessed Bandura, 1977a, but more
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specifically, it was a perceived self- efficacy of people‘s beliefs about their
capabilities to produce designated levels of performance that exercise an influence over events that affect their lives Bandura, 1998. Further these beliefs
determined how people feel, think, motivate themselves and behave.
Self-efficacy was considered a key factor in human agency, because it is such an influential drive in the individual. If an individual had adequate power to produce
an outcome she would invest efforts to make things happen. This would not happen with a person who believes that they have no power to produce an
outcome. Efficacious people would keep on trying, and find an alternative when they experience difficulties. Less efficacious people, on the other hand, would
give up easily when facing problems. In addition, Bandura suggested that self- efficacy beliefs affect behavior through four mediating processes a goal setting
and persistence, b affect, c cognition, and d selection of environment and activities Bandura, 1986, 1989, 1990. Self-efficacy beliefs also affected people
in choosing goals and goal-directed activities, expenditure of efforts and persistence in facing challenges and obstacles Locke Latham, 1990.
In terms of the degree of self-efficacy beliefs, Bandura asserted that they vary in three dimensions of magnitude, strength, and generality Bandura, 1977, 1982,
1986. Magnitude refers to the number of steps of increasing difficulty or threat a person believes she is capable of performing. People might have different levels
of self-efficacy depending on the situation they are in, more particularly depending on the level of stress and anxiety they experience. Self-efficacy also
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differs in terms of its strength of expectancy. Self-efficacy might be higher when people are so convinced in what they are capable of doing, but lower when they
were less confident. Self-efficacy also varies in the extent to which success or failure experiences influence efficacy expectancies in a limited specific manner to
other similar behaviors or contexts. This was what Bandura 1986 and Smith 1989 in Maddux 1995 referred to as the generality dimension of self-efficacy.
2.2.2.2 Ban dura’s conception about teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs
