Moving beyond classroom teaching: a study of multidimensional teacher self-efficacy on job satisfaction and occupational commitment

ABSTRACT

Teacher self-efficacy is a key predictor of teacher attrition, but studies have primarily examined teacher self-efficacy via classroom teaching and overlooked other roles that teachers play in school. Accordingly, this study explores the relationships between, on the one hand, primary and secondary teachers’ job satisfaction and occupational commitment and, on the other, their self-efficacy in three domains: classroom teaching, teacher-student relationships, and school decision-making. The participants included 1,424 primary and secondary teachers from Shanxi, Xinjiang, and Chongqing, China. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to ensure the validity of the survey instruments. The results of path analysis on the survey responses indicate that although all three types of self-efficacy showed a positive relationship with these teachers’ satisfaction and commitment, self-efficacy in teacher-student relationships and self-efficacy in school decision-making both ranked as more important than self-efficacy in classroom teaching. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher self-efficacy
• teacher-student relationships
• school decision-making
• job satisfaction
• occupational commitment

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Professors Anita Woolfolk Hoy, Wayne K. Hoy, Rob Klassen, Isaac A. Friedman, John P. Meyer and Natalie J. Allen for supporting this study. This article reflects only the personal views only and does not represent the views of the Education University of Hong Kong and those of UNESCO and does not commit to the respective organisations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Xianhan Huang

Xianhan Huang is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong, working within the fields of teacher learning, teacher self-efficacy and teaching for creativity. Her publications have appeared in Teaching and Teacher Education, Teaching Skills and Creativity and Frontiers in Psychology.

Chin-Hsi Lin

Chin‐Hsi Lin is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. He earned his Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Technology from the University of California, Irvine in 2012. His research interests revolve around learning processes and outcomes in online language learning, with special attention to self-regulation, interaction, course design, and teacher effects in fully online courses.

John Chi Kin Lee

John Chi-Kin Lee is Chair Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and UNESCO Chair in Regional Education Development and Lifelong Learning at the Education University of Hong Kong. His recent co-edited publications are Transnational Education and Curriculum Studies: International Perspectives (with Noel Gough, 2020, Routledge) and Green Schools Globally: Stories of Impact on Education for Sustainable Development (with Annette Gough and Eric Wai-keung Tsang, 2020, Springer).