Teacher efficacy of English teachers in urban and suburban schools

Abstract

To investigate the context-related teacher efficacy (TE) of experienced teachers in Taiwan, this study examined elementary English teachers more than a decade after a major educational reform to determine whether their TE levels were affected by school location (e.g. urban vs. suburban). The 438 responses to the adapted Teacher Efficacy Scale revealed stronger efficacy regarding the teachers’ personal ability to teach less-motivated students and less confidence regarding the management of school- and government-related concerns. However, school settings did not show a significant effect on the efficacy levels of experienced English teachers. Although caution must be practiced in interpreting results related to school settings and TE, the findings from the current study are generalizable to contexts in which English is spoken as a foreign language. The results also urge much caution when making interpretation on results relating to school settings and TE.

Keywords:

• EFL
• teacher efficacy
• urban and suburban school districts
• English education
• non-native language teacher