How a trainee mathematics teacher develops teacher self-efficacy

ABSTRACT

This research contributes new understanding of how teacher self-efficacy is acquired and developed by a preservice teacher during a one-year programme of initial teacher education (ITE). The findings are consistent with previous studies in confirming that self-efficacy is acquired through vicarious experience, verbal persuasion and mastery experience while being undermined by negative physiological and affective states. In this study, however, the authors consider three separate subdomains of teacher self-efficacy: efficacy in classroom management, efficacy in student engagement and efficacy in instructional strategies. Based on a qualitative analysis of a trainee’s weekly reflections, this research shows that efficacy development is phased, initially dominated by developing efficacy in classroom management and efficacy in student engagement and, only at a significantly later stage, in instructional strategies. This is an important contribution to understanding how trainee teachers develop professional efficacy. Based on these findings, the authors tentatively offer a new self-efficacy development trajectory framework which can be used to inform the development of ITE programmes or continuing professional development programmes.

KEYWORDS:

• Initial teacher education
• teacher self-efficacy
• social cognitive theory
• mathematics education
• professional learning trajectories

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Steven Watson

Steven Watson is a Lecturer in Mathematics Education at the University of Cambridge. He completed a PhD in mathematics teachers’ professional learning at the University of Nottingham in 2014. Prior to that, he taught in secondary schools for eight years having previously worked in a number of positions in engineering, sales and other things.

Gosia Marschall

Gosia Marschall has been a Teaching Associate at the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge since 2014, working with the Secondary Mathematics PGCE Teacher Training programme. She is also a PhD student at Stockholm University, currently researching mathematics teacher self-efficacy development, through a longitudinal study. Gosia’s previous experience involve teaching mathematics in secondary schools in the UK for 10 years and teaching on Advance Mathematics courses for in-service mathematics teachers in the UK.