Addressing the needs of teachers in disadvantaged environments through strategies to enhance self‐efficacy

Abstract

Health Promoting Schools have been introduced to encourage teachers to engage with the community, to promote all facets of health of both learners and teachers. However, previous research established that South African teachers in general were not feeling very motivated, given the problematic environments in which they were working. The researchers therefore focused on helping the teachers participating in this project to increase their self‐efficacy beliefs, and thereby their motivation and confidence. This article will report on the process followed to reach this aim and attempt to measure its success by comparing the perceived needs of the teachers before intervention with their perceptions on the same issues at the end of the first intervention phase.

Keywords:

• Health Promoting School
• self‐efficacy
• teacher development