The effects of professional development experience on teacher self-efficacy: analysis of an international dataset using Bayesian multilevel models

ABSTRACT

This research investigates the relationship between professional development experience and teacher self-efficacy in the United States, using an international dataset, TALIS: 2013. Based on social cognitive theories and adult learning theories, this research hypothesizes that teacher self-efficacy can be enhanced by learning experience by participating in PD. To analyze the data, Bayesian Hierarchical Linear Modeling is used with a prior distribution derived from the results of analysis of international dataset. This study finds that more PD experience was significantly associated with an increased teacher self-efficacy, even after controlling for important individual and school-level characteristics. However, these associations do not hold for the most common types of PD, such as courses/workshops and conferences/seminars. In addition, rural school teachers are more likely to benefits from PD than teachers in large cities. Finally, factors of effective PD and policy implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher professional development
• teacher self-efficacy
• Bayesian multilevel model
• TALIS:2013
• rural education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Although there are no statistical evidence of nonresponse bias, the report additionally suggests that there are still evidence for possible bias when the teachers demographic distributions of TALIS and Schools and Staffing Survey 2007–2008 (SASS) are compared, showing full-time teachers and teachers with over 10 years of teaching experience are overrepresented, and part-time teachers and teachers with less than 4 years of teaching experience are underrepresented in TALIS. Therefore, findings in this study should be interpreted with caution.