Lifelong Learn. 2017, 7, 26-46

https://doi.org/10.11118/lifele2017070226

Development And Piloting Of Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale

Irena Smetáčková, Petra Topková, Anna Vozková

Univerzita Karlova, Pedagogická fakulta, Katedra psychologie, Myslíkova 7, Praha 1, Czech Republic

Received January 16, 2017
Accepted June 9, 2017

Teacher self-efficacy is one of the key concepts related to teacher professionalism. It represents the trust of the teacher in his/her pedagogical skills. Research shows that teachers with high teacher self-efficacy are able to better organise teaching, motivate the students, adequately react to special educational needs, cooperate with the teaching staff and communicate with the students' parents. For both research and diagnostic purposes, it is important to have an effective tool to measure teacher self-efficacy. However, translation of foreign questionnaires is not a suitable solution, because teacher self-efficacy structure is derived from the educational system, which is culturally and historically specific. The article, therefore, introduces a newly developed teacher self-efficacy scale for the Czech primary schools. The scale was developed in three stages - qualitative pilot study, quantitative pilot study (N = 108) and quantitative verification study (N = 518). The final version consists of 45 items divided into 7 subscales. All the subscales are practically, theoretically and psychometrically relevant. The whole scale reliability (α = 0,953) and of all the subscales (α = 0,907; 0,892; 0,848; 0,822; 0,824; 0,639; 0,624) is excellent.