Sources of efficacy information in an inservice program for elementary teachers

Sources of Efficacy Informationin an Inservice Program forElementary Teachers

DAVID PALMERSchool of Education, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia

Received 11 August 2010; revised 26 October 2010, 22 November 2010;accepted 1 December 2010

DOI 10.1002/sce.20434Published online 18 January 2011 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

ABSTRACT: Low teacher self-efficacy is an important factor constraining the teaching ofscience at the elementary level. This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness ofparticular sources of efficacy information for enhancing the science teaching self-efficacyof practicing elementary teachers. Twelve teachers participated in an intervention that wasdesigned to provide them with cognitive mastery, enactive mastery, modeling, and verbalpersuasion. Data were collected prior to, during, immediately after, and 2 years after theintervention. The results showed that increases in self-efficacy were mainly due to cognitivemastery (i.e., perceived success in understanding how to teach science) and in situ feedback(i.e., verbal persuasion given after observation of the teacher teaching his/her own class).C© 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 95:577 – 600, 2011

INTRODUCTION

Over the past three decades, Bandura’s social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1982, 1997)has made a significant contribution to our understanding of motivation. According to thistheory, the behavior of humans is significantly affected by their own cognitive processesas well as by the environment. Individuals use their existing knowledge and beliefs tointerpret external situations and events, and as a result, they develop expectations thatplay a large role in determining their future behavior. The construct of self-efficacy isa key element of this theory. Bandura (1981) defined self-efficacy as “judgements abouthow well one can organize and execute courses of action required to deal with prospec-tive situations that contain many ambiguous, unpredictable and often stressful, elements”(p. 200). The importance of self-efficacy lies in its ability to predict behavior—people tendto choose tasks for which they feel more efficacious and also tend to persist at those tasks inthe face of difficulties (Bandura, 1977, 1982; Stipek, 2002). On the other hand, individuals

Correspondence to: David Palmer; e-mail: [email protected]

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with low self-efficacy will be likely to give up or avoid the task altogether. Social cognitivetheory has also given rise to another construct, “outcome expectancy,” which is an individ-ual’s estimation of the likely consequences of performing the task. While self-efficacy andoutcome expectancy may both influence behavior, Bandura (1977) argued that self-efficacyis more important—a person might believe there are benefits if a task is done well (highoutcome expectancy) but would be unlikely to attempt the task if there were low expec-tations for success (low self-efficacy). For this reason, the focus of this paper will be onself-efficacy rather than outcome expectancy.

Teacher self-efficacy refers to “individual teachers’ beliefs in their own abilities to plan,organize, and carry out activities required to attain given educational goals” (Skaalvik &Skaalvik, 2007, p. 612). Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy, and Hoy (1998) reviewed ear-lier studies and concluded that teachers with high instructional self-efficacy spent moreclassroom time on academic activities, provided more help for students experiencing diffi-culties, were more supportive of student motivation and self-regulation, were more willingto try new and innovative methods of teaching, and had a stronger commitment to teaching.On the other hand, teachers with low levels of instructional efficacy were more critical ofstudents, readily gave up on students who were experiencing difficulties, were more au-thoritarian, and relied on extrinsic rewards to get students to study. In science classes, highlevels of teacher self-efficacy have been linked to higher levels of activity-based instruction(Enochs, Scharmann, & Riggs, 1995) whereas low self-efficacy has been linked to didacticteaching and low levels of inquiry (Bencze & Hodson, 1999). In recent studies, Woltersand Daugherty (2007) reported that teacher efficacy was positively related to classroompractices to enhance mastery goals among students and Ware and Kitsantas (2007) foundthat high self-efficacy was associated with higher professional commitment to teaching.

Teacher self-efficacy is a particularly critical issue at the elementary school level. Anumber of studies carried out during the 1990s found that many practicing elementaryteachers have low self-efficacy for teaching science, especially physical science topics(e.g., Ramey-Gassert, Shroyer, & Staver, 1996; Carre & Carter, 1990) and this substantiallyreduced the quantity and quality of science taught (Butler Kahle, Anderson, & Damnjanovic,1991; Goodrum, Cousins, & Kinnear, 1992). Recent research has shown that, unfortunately,the problem is still very much alive—Murphy, Neil, and Beggs (2007) carried out a large-scale study, which found that lack of teacher confidence was still the current issue of majorconcern in elementary science. Consequently, there is a continuing need to develop thescience teaching self-efficacy of practicing elementary teachers. The purpose of this paperis to address this issue.

Sources of Self-Efficacy

Bandura (1997) argued that to enhance self-efficacy it is necessary to utilize the sourcesof efficacy information. He described four sources of information that may contributeto the formation of efficacy beliefs: mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbalpersuasion, and physiological responses.

Mastery Experiences. Enactive mastery experiences are previous perceived successes inperforming a particular task (Bandura, 1997), which, for the purposes of this paper, will betaken to refer to the performance of actual classroom teaching. This is an important source ofefficacy information because it has been argued that only in situations of actual teaching canindividuals accurately assess their capability for the task of teaching (Tschannen-Moranet al., 1998). For example, Ramey-Gassert et al. (1996) found that positive experiences

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teaching science to their classes were a major factor in enhancing efficacy for practicingelementary teachers who participated in a professional development program. However, ona day-to-day basis it may be difficult for many teachers, especially novices, to experienceenactive mastery when teaching science. This is mainly because there are a range ofother obstacles that can inhibit the successful teaching of science, including availability ofresources (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2007), pressure to meet district standardsand benchmarks (Lee & Houseal, 2003), lack of time (Ross & Mason, 2001), and managingthe behavior of children as they interact with each other and with the manipulative materials(Mulholland & Wallace, 2001). The second reason why enactive mastery can be elusivein day-to-day teaching is that, in complex tasks such as teaching, it is not always easy toidentify when one has been successful—Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2007) emphasized that itis not success per se that provides efficacy information, but rather it is one’s perceptionof success. Professional development programs can be an effective way to overcome thesedifficulties (Murphy et al., 2007), and the usual approach is to enhance teacher knowledgeand skills as much as possible prior to actual teaching, by using modeling, practice, andreflection, then allowing the teachers to try specific activities with their classes and to reflecton the experience (e.g., Posnanski, 2002; Ross & Bruce, 2007). In this way, the potentialfor successful enactive mastery can be enhanced.

However, there is another form of mastery experience, which for the sake of comparisonwill be referred to in this paper as “cognitive mastery.” This occurs when teachers perceivesuccess in understanding science concepts or pedagogical concepts. This idea is not new,as activities to enhance teacher knowledge are usually included as a component of manyprofessional development programs. For example, Khourey-Bowers and Simonis (2004)provided a chemistry professional development program for middle school teachers, inwhich the participants’ self-efficacy was enhanced partly through developing their chem-istry content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. Similarly, Britner and Pajares(2006) focused on the idea of “academic self-efficacy,” which occurred when middle schoolstudents develop mastery in science learning tasks, and Dalgety, Coll, and Jones (2003)investigated “chemistry self-efficacy,” which occurred when tertiary students experiencedsuccess in learning. Thus, in this paper, the term cognitive mastery will refer to the attain-ment of an understanding of pedagogical concepts, whereas the term enactive mastery willrefer to the act of classroom teaching. One open question, though, concerns the relativeeffectiveness of the two forms of mastery. In other words, can cognitive mastery be aseffective as enactive mastery for experienced teachers?

Vicarious Experiences. These are situations in which one watches another person suc-cessfully perform the behavior (Bandura, 1997). This type of modeling can raise theself-efficacy of the observer, who feels that if another person can do it then he/she coulddo it too. This form of efficacy information is most effective when the observer perceiveshimself/herself to be of similar ability and experience to the person doing the modeling. Infact, a “coping model” provided by a person of limited experience who gradually overcomesdifficulties by determined effort, can be more effective than a masterly model, who performsfaultlessly, but with whom the observer may not identify. Unfortunately, the relatively lowquality and quantity of science taught in many elementary schools (Goodrum et al., 1992)suggests it could be difficult for teachers to observe science being taught, so there may be fewday-to-day opportunities for vicarious experience (Mulholland & Wallace, 2001). In profes-sional development programs though, vicarious experience has been provided in a numberof different ways. For example, Posnanski (2002) described how instructors modeled thedesired teaching behaviors, and participants were also shown videotaped lessons featuring

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other practicing elementary science teachers. Khourey-Bowers and Simonis (2004) pro-vided vicarious experience through peer teaching exercises, as each person had multipleopportunities to be an observer. Ross and Bruce (2007) provided mathematics teachers withopportunities to recount successful teaching events to their peers. One potential form of vi-carious experience that was not investigated in these studies would be to provide modelingfor teachers in their own classrooms. In other words, the classroom teacher could observehis/her class being taught by another person. This “in situ modeling” could be of valueto teachers, as it could potentially provide highly authentic evidence that science can betaught successfully to their own class, by a person of similar ability to themselves.

Verbal Persuasion. This occurs when one receives feedback and encouragement fromother people, indicating that one has the capability to perform the task. Of course, peopledo not always believe what they are told, as those with low self-efficacy may have a level ofscepticism as a result of their past experiences (Bandura, 1997). However, verbal persuasionis likely to be effective when it is received from a highly competent individual who is per-ceived as an expert in the field. In schools, teachers can receive verbal persuasion throughinterpersonal support from school administration, colleagues, parents, and the community(Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2007). However, in view of the lack of science exper-tise in elementary schools, it could be argued there would be relatively few science expertsamong these sources. In professional development settings, verbal persuasion has beenprovided when instructors give oral and written feedback when evaluating assignments,or when holding large group discussions with participants (Khourey-Bowers & Simonis,2004; Posnanski, 2002) and also by providing frequent assurance that participants wouldbe successful (Ross & Bruce, 2007). One new form of verbal persuasion would be to havean expert observe the teacher teaching his/her own class and to give feedback afterward.This “in situ feedback” could potentially be a useful source of verbal persuasion as it couldprovide highly credible feedback in an authentic context.

Physiological and Affective States. These can be a source of efficacy information, aspeople are often conscious of their state of physiological or emotional arousal, and thisprovides indirect information about their capability to deal with challenging situations. Highlevels of stress and fear can be debilitating, as they lead to thoughts about ineptitude, whichcan generate further stress and fear through anticipatory self-arousal (Bandura, 1997). Onthe other hand, when people are not overly tense and agitated they are more inclined toexpect to perform successfully. A number of forms of assistance have been provided inprofessional development programs, to reduce fear and stress. Posnanski (2002) promotedpositive affective tone by providing extensive support in the form of collaboration, practicesessions, and sharing of resources. Ross and Bruce (2007) sequenced the introduction ofpedagogical strategies from least threatening (use of manipulatives) to more threatening(sharing control of the lesson with students), and Khourey-Bowers and Simonis (2004)promoted a relaxed, respectful atmosphere of camaraderie and collaboration to reducestress levels. However, one potential strategy for reducing stress and fear that has not yetbeen considered, is to provide “repetitious familiarity.” In other words, if one becomes veryfamiliar with science teaching, through observing another perform it on multiple occasions,will that strong sense of familiarity reduce the fear factor? This use of sustained modelingcould be a useful way to reduce fear and stress, as it could help to remove the sense ofnewness or change, which can be source of workplace stress among teachers (Borg, 1990).

Although Bandura (1997) proposed that efficacy information could be provided bymastery, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and physiological/affective states, he

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argued that they were not all equally effective. In his view, (1) enactive mastery experienceswere the most powerful source of self-efficacy because they provided authentic evidence ofone’s ability to perform the task; (2) vicarious experiences played an important role whenpeople had little or no direct experience of the task, so they lacked direct knowledge of theirown ability and had to rely on modeled experience; (3) verbal persuasion had relativelylimited potential to create enduring increases in efficacy, but may have had short-termeffects in enhancing effort and perseverance; and (4) physiological and affective stateswere the least effective source of efficacy information as they were not reliably diagnosticof one’s capability. However, evidence from other studies is that the pattern suggested byBandura may not always apply. For example, Zeldin, Britner, and Pajares (2008) studiedmen and women in science-related careers and found that mastery experiences, in the formof success in doing science at school, were an important source of efficacy for men, butwomen were primarily influenced by verbal persuasion and vicarious experience. Withregard to teachers, Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2007) studied 255 elementary,middle school, and high school teachers and found that mastery experiences were the mainsource of efficacy, for experienced teachers, whereas novice teachers were more likely to beinfluenced by verbal persuasion. Ginns and Watters (1996) studied two novice elementaryteachers and found that the major influences were vicarious experiences (for one teacher)and verbal persuasion (for the other). Mulholland and Wallace (2001) found that enactivemastery experiences were important for a teacher in the preservice phase, but once in full-time employment vicarious experiences had a more powerful influence. Thus, the relativeeffectiveness of each of the sources of self-efficacy is still very much an open question.This is further complicated by the fact that each of Bandura’s four sources of efficacyinformation may be actualized in more than one form—vicarious experience, for example,may be provided in several different ways, including actual modeling (observing anotherperson perform the task), symbolic modeling (performances portrayed on television or othervisual media), and videotaped self-modeling (edited videotapes of oneself performing thetask) (Bandura, 1997)—and as argued above, there are some potentially powerful formssuch as cognitive mastery, in situ modeling, in situ feedback, and repetitious familiarity,the effects of which are yet to be studied.

A further issue concerns the long-term impact of efficacy information. It might behypothesized, for example, that teachers’ attitudes and beliefs may be temporarily improvedat the end of an interesting and well-presented professional development course, but theymay decline afterward as teachers return to the ongoing demands of daily life in schools. Inother words, there is the potential that newly gained self-efficacy may be eroded with thepassage of time. This is an important consideration in social cognitive theory, and Bandura(1997) used the term “durability” to refer to the extent to which changes in self-efficacyare maintained over time. Palmer (2006) found that when preservice elementary teachersparticipated in a science education course, changes in self-efficacy were maintained forat least 1 year afterward. Watson (2006) studied inservice teachers and found that theirimproved level of self-efficacy after summer workshops remained high 6 years after theprogram. Thus, there is some evidence that changes in self-efficacy can be durable. However,there is one other potential advantage of delayed testing that has not yet been considered—it is possible that the delay period may allow people to look back at their experiencesduring the initial professional development program to identify its most salient features.For example, it might be hypothesized that when a teacher is immersed in a professionaldevelopment situation, there can be a rich variety of new experiences occurring withina short time frame, and it may sometimes be difficult to clearly identify which of themare having the most effect. The passage of time may allow one to look back on the totalexperience and extract the most meaningful events. Thus, although this type of approach

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is unusual, a long-term perspective may provide valuable insights to complement thoseobtained in the short term. This study will focus on cognitive mastery, enactive mastery,in situ modeling, in situ feedback, and repetitious familiarity, to identify their impact fromboth a short-term and a long-term perspective.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of these sources of informationfor enhancing the science teaching self-efficacy of practicing elementary teachers. Theresearch questions are as follows:

1. What are the effects of cognitive mastery and enactive mastery as sources of efficacyinformation for elementary teachers?

2. What is the effect of vicarious experience provided for elementary teachers in theirown classrooms (i.e., in situ modeling)?

3. What is the effect of verbal persuasion provided by an expert after direct observationof the elementary teacher teaching his/her own class (i.e., in situ feedback)?

4. What is the effect of repetitious familiarity in relation to the control of fear and stressamong elementary teachers?

5. What is the comparative effectiveness of cognitive mastery, enactive mastery, insitu modeling, in situ feedback and repetitious familiarity as sources of efficacyinformation for elementary teachers?

The answers to these questions will be important, as cognitive mastery, enactive mastery,in situ modeling, in situ feedback, and repetitious familiarity are potentially useful sources ofefficacy information. The results should therefore play a role in informing the developmentof future professional development programs for enhancing the self-efficacy of elementaryteachers.

METHOD

The study used a preexperimental design (McMillan & Schumacher, 2006) involvingpretest, intervention, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest. Twelve volunteer elementaryteachers participated in the intervention and provided data on 10 occasions through survey,interview, and open-ended questionnaire. The data sources were triangulated to ensurevalidity and reliability, and the teachers’ comments in interviews and questionnaires wereused to provide evidence of causality. Although interviews were used, this was essentiallya quantitative rather than mixed methods study, as the interviews were intended to provideadditional data on the relationships, causes, and effects measured by the surveys andquestionnaires (Wiersma, 2000).

Participants

The study focused on a relatively small sample of 12 participants, but this had the ad-vantage of allowing more intensive data collection for each teacher. The teachers wereemployed in six elementary schools located in a city in southeastern Australia. The schoolswere located in the same part of the city, and each drew children from a range of socioe-conomic backgrounds. For the purposes of comparison, only teachers who taught Grade3 or 4 classes (children aged 9–10 years old) were included in the project. The teachersrepresented a cross-section of genders and ages: there were six males and six females inthe sample; four were in their late twenties, three were in the 20–45-year age group, andthe remainder were more than 45 years of age. Novice teachers are known to differ from

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experienced teachers in the factors that can affect their self-efficacy (Tschannen-Moran &Woolfolk Hoy, 2007), and in the present study all participants had been teaching for at least3 years, so had at least moderate levels of experience.

In Australia, elementary teachers are required to complete at least 4 years of formalpreparation for teaching. They not science specialists, as science is only one of sevencompulsory subjects in the elementary curriculum. The science curriculum promotes aninquiry approach, but in many schools there remains an emphasis on content knowledge,and practical activities are typically teacher directed (Rennie, Goodrum, & Hackling, 2001).The schools in this study were typical of many throughout Australia in that the children camefrom a mixture of middle and lower income levels. Although the schools were located inan urban area, this was not considered to put any significant limitations on science teachingin terms of student behavior or attitude (see Rennie et al., 2001). The majority of thechildren were of European descent, although each class normally contained small numbersof indigenous children, children from non-English-speaking backgrounds, or children withmild special needs.

The Intervention

The intervention consisted of three phases—workshop phase, the observation phase, andthe teaching phase—and these occurred over an 8-week period in the middle of the schoolyear. The intervention aimed to enhance the teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching science,through having a focus on hands-on inquiry. Recent curriculum documents worldwide haveemphasized the importance of an inquiry approach (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 2004; Chinn &Malhotra, 2002; Crawford, 2007; Marx et al., 2004), yet it has not been widely implementedin elementary schools (Smolleck, Zembal-Saul, & Yoder, 2006), and researchers haveidentified a need for further development of inquiry skills at the elementary school level(Cuevas, Lee, Hart, & Deaktor, 2005). Consequently, during the intervention, the teacherswere taught one specific pedagogical technique for hands-on inquiry. This pedagogicaltechnique, the investigating sequence, is a series of steps designed to provide a structurefor a hands-on inquiry lesson. By following the steps, the teacher can provide opportunitiesfor children to make observations and explanations, propose investigable questions, designand carry out a simple fair test using everyday materials, and report their findings to theclass. It is an appropriate technique for elementary school because it provides intensivescaffolding, through modeling, prompting, subtle teacher guidance, and brainstorming. Ithas been used in schools on several occasions (Palmer, 2003, 2009), and a brief descriptionof the technique is provided in Figure 1. All the materials for the hands-on lessons wereprovided for the teachers, so resources would not be a limiting factor. The investigatingsequence was taught to the teachers and implemented in their classes via the three phasesof the intervention, as follows.

Workshop Phase. In this first phase of the intervention, all the teachers attended a single,3-hour workshop at the university. The workshop was taught by the author and was designedto allow participants to experience success in understanding the investigating sequence, inother words, to experience cognitive mastery. The technique was taught to the teachers byexplanation, discussion, and modeling, in which the presenter played the role of a teacherand the teachers worked through the sequence to perform the full investigation.

Observation Phase. This phase began 2 weeks after the workshop phase and lasted for4 weeks. It was intended to provide both in situ modeling and repetitious familiarity. Each

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The Investigating Sequence This sequence is intended to provide children with practise in designing and performing simple, controlled experiments suitable for elementary level. The sequence consists of six steps that can ideally be completed in one extended lesson:

1. Demonstrate (10 minutes). The teacher demonstrates an interesting hands-on activity and asks the children to describe their observations and to propose explanations. For example, the teacher could demonstrate how to make and use a tin can telephone, with children then describing the sounds heard, and the reason why sounds are heard. This demonstration provides a model for how to manipulate the materials and, with teacher prompting, the children’s observations and explanations give them give them guidance as to the types of observations and explanations they will need to consider in their own experiments.

2. Display (2 minutes). The teacher displays a range of alternative materials that could conceivably be used for this activity (e.g., some different types of tin cans, plastic cups, polystyrene cups, thick string, and thin string). This step is intended to guide the children’s attention toward the materials t hat are presently available.

3. Ask (5 minutes). The teacher asks the children, “What would you like to find out about the activity that was demonstrated?” The students brainstorm a range of research questions that the teacher can help formulate into simple comparisons of two materials (e.g., Do polystyrene cups work better than tin cans? or Does thick string work better than thin string?). The teacher discusses with the class how they would do these as fair tests. As the children’s attention has been directed to the display, they will normally choose to investigate those materials that are available for immediate investigation. The brainstorming provides children with a range of investigable questions, and the discussion of fair tests provides them with ideas for experimental design.

4. Choose (3 minutes). The teacher asks the students to work in pairs to decide what they would like to investigate and how they will do it as a fair test. A range of questions were modeled in the preceding step, so each pair of students can either use one of those or propose a new one of their own. The original demonstration will have provided a model for how to do the experiment, so the main decisions will be which materials to compare and how to make it a fair test.

5. Experiment (up to 10 minutes). The teacher instructs children to collect their equipment, carry out their experiment, and observe the results.

6. Report (at least 10 minutes). The teacher asks each pair to verbally report to the class their investigable question, how they made it a fair test, and what happened. Results from different groups are compared and possible explanations proposed. Different pair groups will have compared different materials, so by having a report to the full class, the students will develop an understanding of the results for the full range of materials.

Figure 1. A summary of the investigating sequence.

participating teacher became an observer as his/her class was taught a hands-on inquirylesson by another person (i.e., in situ modeling). This occurred once per week for 4 weeks,so each teacher would also be able to experience repetitious familiarity with hands-oninquiry, so fear and stress might be reduced. The teaching in the observation phase was

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carried out by preservice elementary teachers. The use of preservice teachers as modelsis unusual, but in this project they offered two important advantages: First, the preserviceteachers were thoroughly familiar with the investigating sequence, as they had recentlycompleted a one-semester science methods unit that had a strong focus on hands-on inquiryusing this technique; and second, in view of their relative lack of experience in classroomteaching, these students would provide a “coping model” (i.e., someone who is not en-tirely accomplished), which Bandura argued could be advantageous. Twelve preserviceelementary teachers, one for each of the 12 classrooms, participated in the project. Thesevolunteers were selected according to their level of participation and grades in the sciencemethods course. They were in the third year of a 4-year teacher education program, andthey had previously completed two 4-week teaching blocks in elementary schools, so theyhad a moderate level of skills and knowledge for teaching. Over the 4 weeks, each preser-vice teacher used the investigating sequence to teach lessons of approximately 45 minuteson toy parachutes, string telephones, balloon rockets, and wind chimes, respectively. Toensure the lessons presented an accurate model of the investigating sequence, each of the12 preservice teachers was observed on one occasion by the author, who provided feedbackwhere necessary. The four lessons were directly observed by the inservice teacher, whocompleted a short questionnaire (see Data Collection) at the end of each one.

Teaching Phase. This phase occurred during the 2 weeks immediately following theobservation phase and was intended to facilitate enactive mastery as well as in situ feedback.Each inservice teacher taught his/her own class two lessons using the investigating sequence(the first lesson was an investigation of soap bubbles, and the second was on floating andsinking) to facilitate enactive mastery. The second of these two lessons was observed bythe author, who provided in situ feedback at the end of the lesson. This feedback wasvery strongly positive, to promote verbal persuasion. It consisted mainly of affirmativecomments that focused on the positive aspects of the lessons, as suggested by Bandura(1997). For example, “That lesson went really well. I liked the way you really pushed theidea of a fair test.”

This intervention was relatively short in comparison to those of other studies, but itwas justified on the following grounds. The teachers did not receive any inducementsor recognition for participation in this professional development program, so the timecommitment required was reduced to minimize disruption to their routines. The studytherefore provided a model for professional development under conditions in which theamount of time that teachers are able to spend out of class is an important consideration.In addition, the project was unusual in that it focused on only one teaching technique, theinvestigating sequence, so the time required was shorter in comparison to other programs,which have covered a wider range.

Data Collection and Analysis

Interviews and surveys were administered 1 week before the intervention (pretest),1 week after the intervention (immediate posttest), and 2 years after the intervention(delayed posttest). It was important to have a substantial delay period to provide evidenceof enduring changes in self-efficacy and to provide a long-term perspective on the impact ofparticular sources. In addition, questionnaires containing open response and closed responseitems were administered throughout the intervention. These sources complemented eachother by providing data before and after the intervention, as well as during it.

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Survey. The purpose of the survey was to provide evidence for changes in elementaryscience teaching self-efficacy. The instrument was the Science Teaching Efficacy BeliefInstrument (STEBI-A), which had been developed by Riggs and Enochs (1990) for use withelementary teachers. The STEBI-A is a Likert-type instrument of 25 items comprising twoscales: the Personal Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Scale (PSTEB), which measures self-efficacy, and the Science Teaching Outcome Expectancy Scale (STOE), which measuresOutcome Expectancy. The instrument has been widely used (e.g., Crowther & Cannon,2000; Shireen DeSouza, Boone, & Yilmaz, 2004; Roberts, Henson, Tharp, & Moreno,2000). The STEBI was administered to the 12 teachers at the pretest, immediate posttest,and delayed posttest stages. In each case, the full STEBI was administered, to maintainits integrity, but as the focus of this study was only on self-efficacy, and as there has beensome disagreement about how to interpret the STOE scale (Roberts et al., 2000; Settlage,Southerland, Smith, & Ceglie., 2009) it was decided to analyze only the PSTEB scale.Analysis was carried out using nonparametric statistics because the variances differedmarkedly, and it could not be assumed that the population had a normal distribution. Thetests used were the related samples Friedman’s analysis of variance (ANOVA) by ranksand the related samples Wilcoxon signed rank test. These make fewer assumptions aboutthe data than the standard ANOVA or t-test. The analysis was carried out using SPSS.

Interviews. The teachers were individually interviewed at the pretest, immediate posttest,and delayed posttest stages. The interviews were intended to provide additional evidence forchanges in self-efficacy and also to provide evidence about the comparative effectiveness ofeach of the sources. The interviews were audiotaped and typically lasted about 20 minutes.In the pretest interviews, teachers were asked the following questions: (1) How confident areyou to teach a science lesson? and (2) How would you teach a hands-on inquiry lesson? Theinterviews were carried out by a research assistant and used anonymous identifiers to ensureconfidentiality. In the immediate posttest and delayed posttest interviews, teachers wereasked the following questions: (1) How confident are you to teach a science lesson?, (2)Did the workshop/observations/teaching /feedback affect your confidence to teach science?,(3) What caused the change in confidence?, and (4) Has your science teaching changedas a result of the intervention? (delayed posttest only). Further probing and clarifyingquestions were asked when necessary. Comparison of the pretest and immediate posttestresponses for Question 1, as well as Questions 3 and 4, were intended to provide evidencefor changes in self-efficacy. Question 2 (in the posttest) was intended to provide evidenceconcerning the sources of self-efficacy. The interview transcripts were analyzed usingthe following procedure: Each response was divided into meaningful segments, categorieswere developed to code the segments, and the coded segments were cumulated for eachcategory. To investigate the reliability of this procedure, a representative sample of 20responses was independently coded by the author and a colleague. Agreement was foundin 85% of cases.

In line with a number of other studies (Baldwin, Ebert-May, & Burns, 1999; Bleicher,2007; Cannon & Scharmann, 1996; Rice & Roychoudhury, 2003; Settlage, 2000) the term“confidence” was deliberately used in these interviews, as teachers were likely to be morefamiliar with it than the term “self-efficacy.” It should be noted though that although they areclosely related, the two terms are not identical. Bandura (1997) argued that self-confidenceis a more general term that refers to the strength of a belief but does not necessarilyspecify what the certainty is about, whereas self-efficacy is a more specific term and ispreferable, as it is theory based. Use of the term confidence was justified in this study, asthe interviews allowed teachers to fully explain what their confidence was about. It was

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therefore decided to use this approach to promote clarity between the interviewer and theinterviewee. However, it should be noted that this was a deviation from Bandura’s theory,which was adopted for the purposes of this study.

Questionnaires. The purpose of the questionnaires was to provide evidence about theeffectiveness of each of the sources of efficacy information during the actual interven-tion. Teachers were asked to complete written responses to short questionnaires on sevenoccasions: at the end of the workshop phase, at the end of each of the four lessons inthe observation phase, and at the end of each of the two lessons in the teaching phase.The questionnaires contained a closed response item and an open response item. Theclosed response item was to what extent did this experience affect your confidence toteach science? (circle one) very positively, positively, neutral, negatively, very negatively.The responses were rated 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, respectively, and ANOVA was used to compare theaverage responses for each of the main components of the intervention (nonparametric testswere not used for this analysis as the variances were comparable). Post hoc comparisonswere carried out using the Fisher least significant difference (LSD) test (as sample sizeswere uneven), and effect sizes were calculated. The open response item was please explainas fully as possible. The written comments were analyzed using the same procedure usedfor the interview transcripts.

Validity and Reliability of the Data

The study collected data on 10 occasions, through survey, interview, and questionnaire.The internal validity of the self-efficacy measurements was verified by comparing resultsfrom alternative data sources—the teachers’ self-efficacy levels recorded from the STEBI-A were compared with their verbally reported self-efficacy levels obtained in pretest andposttest interviews. Similarly, evaluation of the relative effectiveness of each of the sourcesof self-efficacy involved comparison between quantitative data from closed-response itemsin questionnaires, qualitative data from open-response items in questionnaires, and qualita-tive data from immediate posttest interviews and delayed posttest interviews. The credibilityof the teachers’ responses was promoted by ensuring their anonymity, through the use ofanonymous identifiers for all data collection. The results can be argued to have sufficientexternal validity to similar populations of elementary school teachers, as data were col-lected on a large number of occasions, using considerable triangulation to ensure that anaccurate representation of the situation was obtained (Wiersma, 2000). In addition, thegeneralizability of the results was increased by using multisite data gathering, as responseswere obtained from teachers from six schools.

The internal consistency of the PSTEB was checked in this study using Cronbach’s alpha(α = 0.75) but while this result is acceptable, it should be treated with caution due to thesmall sample size of 12 teachers. To confirm internal consistency of the survey, referencehas been made to other studies in which acceptable internal consistency has been measuredusing larger cohorts of comparable populations (e.g., Riggs & Enochs, 1990, obtained anα of 0.91). A test–retest procedure was used to establish the reliability of the questionnaireitems, as during the observation phase, responses were obtained to the same closed-responsequestions on multiple occasions. Internal reliability of the data collection procedures wasenhanced by using a variety of different types of sources, comprising survey, interview, andquestionnaire. External reliability was enhanced by providing a comprehensive descriptionof the research methodology, which allows informed judgement about the replicabilityof the research and its limitations with regard to different contexts, as presented in theDiscussion.

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RESULTS

In this section, data regarding changes in self-efficacy will be presented first, thenevidence for the effectiveness of each of the sources of efficacy information will be presentedroughly in the order in which they occurred in the intervention, and finally their relativeeffectiveness will be evaluated.

Changes in Self-Efficacy

The means (and variances) for the PSTEB scale in pretest, immediate posttest, anddelayed posttest, respectively, were 44 (64), 50 (28), and 51 (55). The Friedman’s ANOVAby ranks indicated there were significant differences (p = .002) and pairwise comparisonsusing the Wilcoxon signed rank test showed that the pretest scores were significantly lowerthan the immediate posttest (p = .021) and delayed posttest (p = .008) scores. There wasno significant difference between the immediate posttest and delayed posttest scores. Insummary, analysis of the PSTEB indicated an increase in self-efficacy over the period ofthe intervention, and the changes were maintained over the delay period.

This finding was supported by the interview data. In the pretest interviews, only 42% ofthe teachers expressed confidence to teach science. A typical response from the majorityof teachers was, “Not confident, due to the makeup of the class, the lack of resourcesand experience I have. I could not follow it through to its conclusion.” However, in theimmediate posttest interviews 100% of the teachers rated themselves as either confident orvery confident. They ascribed their improved confidence to participation in the project: “Ifeel very confident now. After watching [the instructor] at the uni, observing the processduring the student teaching and then using that same process to teach the fair test gave mea lot of confidence.” Two years later, in the delayed posttest interviews, all the teachers stillrated themselves as either confident or very confident.

During the delayed posttest interviews, the teachers also indicated increased levels ofscience teaching had occurred during the delay period:

I feel a lot more at ease and I feel it’s not really hard to prepare hands-on science things. Iused to be a bit scared because I thought ‘I don’t really have time to do that’, but now I doand it only takes me five or ten minutes and I’m ready, so I’m doing a lot more hands-on.

Other teachers described new science programs they had created, or the way they hadintegrated the project’s inquiry lessons into their ongoing programs. These types of activitieswere additional indicators of enhanced self-efficacy.

Evidence for Cognitive Mastery

The pretest interviews indicated low levels of knowledge for teaching hands-on inquiry,with 75% of the teachers rating themselves as either poor or neutral. When asked how theywould teach a hands-on inquiry lesson to their class all the teachers were quite vague:

I am not sure about a fair test. I would model a lot, role play with students how I am going tolearn these skills and get across to kids why it is important to observe during an experiment.Although I am not exactly sure of those terms. I could still learn a fair bit about that.

In the questionnaires that were completed after the workshop, all the teachers indi-cated a good or strong level of understanding of the investigating sequence and all

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the teachers indicated that the workshop had a positive or very positive effect on theirconfidence:

I found it beneficial to see and do the experiments using the investigating sequence before Ihave to teach them to my class. Talking about the exact process we will take the kids throughand the types of questions we will ask was very helpful. I have much more confidence indoing some science with my class.

In the immediate posttest interviews, 11 of the 12 teachers maintained their view thatthe workshop had a positive effect on their confidence. In summary, the teachers initiallyhad relatively poor knowledge of hands-on inquiry, but the workshop allowed them toperceive success in understanding the investigating sequence, so cognitive mastery didoccur. Their perception of success in understanding positively impacted on their confidenceto teach science, so the implication is that cognitive mastery was effective in promoting self-efficacy. It should be noted that the teachers were not tested on their actual knowledge of theinvestigating sequence, as mastery is generated by a perceived success in understanding.However, they each taught lessons using the investigating sequence later in the intervention,and these were observed by the author, who considered them to be competent.

Evidence for In Situ Modeling and Repetitious Familiarity

In the questionnaires that were completed after each of the four lessons in the observationphase, an average of 84% of the teachers rated the experience as having a positive or verypositive effect on their confidence. The remainder were neutral, and this pattern remainedstable over the 4 weeks. However, their written comments did not suggest either vicariousexperience or physiological/affective responses. Instead, their responses indicated thatconfidence had been increased because they had developed more knowledge about howto do hands-on inquiry, and its effect on the children (e.g., “The children were highlymotivated by this activity. The basic structure of the lesson makes it appealing as a sciencelesson”). Similarly, the immediate posttest interviews indicated that 75% of the teachers feltthe observations had improved their confidence to teach science. The main reason givenwas that the observations had helped them learn how to teach science (e.g., “I enjoyedwatching her teach and I could see that she was doing exactly what [the instructor] wantedher to do. It reinforced what I needed to do and therefore it increased my confidence”). Insummary, the four questionnaires and the interviews provided similar data indicating theobservation phase had positively affected teacher confidence, but it was not due to vicariousexperience or physiological/affective states. Instead, the in situ modeling provided improvedknowledge of how to teach science (i.e., cognitive mastery).

Evidence for Enactive Mastery

In the questionnaires completed after each of the two lessons in the teaching phase, nearlyall the teachers (92%) indicated it had a positive or very positive effect on their confidence.Nearly all the written comments were coded as enactive mastery because they indicatedeither a perception of a successful teaching experience (e.g., “The lesson sequence followedlogically, making it an easy lesson”) or a perception of a successful learning experiencefor children (“It was great to see the children so enthusiastic and interested in learning.It was also evident that the children had become quite familiar with what a fair test wasthrough their responses. I really enjoyed teaching this lesson”). In the immediate posttestinterviews, only 50% of the teachers indicated that teaching the lesson had affected theirconfidence, and nearly all of these responses were coded as enactive mastery (e.g., “In

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being able to do it here has given me greater confidence in teaching this kind of thing”). Insummary, the results indicated that enactive mastery did occur, although it was mentionedmore often in the questionnaires than the immediate posttest interviews.

Evidence for In Situ Feedback

In the questionnaires completed after the final lesson in the teaching phase, all the teach-ers indicated that feedback from the expert had positively or very positively affected theirconfidence. A typical comment was “Reinforcement of how and what I teach was appre-ciated and will encourage further attempts at similar lessons.” A similar pattern was notedin the immediate posttest interviews, in which nearly all the teachers indicated a positiveeffect on confidence (“Yes, he was really positive. He said he liked the way I organised theclass and how the kids were engaged. He made me feel that I was teaching it effectivelyand correctly. I was a bit hesitant when he was first in the class, but the feedback was goodfor my confidence”). Thus, in situ feedback was effective in enhancing self-efficacy.

Relative Importance of the Sources

Quantitative analysis of the closed-response item on the questionnaire (i.e., “To whatextent did this experience affect your confidence to teach science?”) revealed that means foreach of the phases of the intervention were high (workshop phase = 4.6 of 5; observationphase = 4.0; and components of the teaching phase were separated into teaching = 4.3; andin situ feedback = 4.8). The one-way ANOVA (Table 1) indicated there were significantdifferences between the phases, and post hoc analysis found the in situ feedback and theworkshop were significantly more effective than the observations. In both cases, the effectsizes were large (1.69 and 1.24, respectively). The quantitative analysis therefore suggestedthat each of the components had a positive impact on teacher confidence, but the mosteffective were the in situ feedback (in the teaching phase) and cognitive mastery (in theworkshop phase).

TABLE 1Comparison of Intervention Phases

One-way ANOVA Summary

Source SS df MS F

Between groups 6.96 3 2.32 7.42∗

Within groups 22.83 73 .31Total 29.79 76

Fisher LSD Tests on Differences Between Pairs of Means

Phase

Phase 1 2 3 4

1 (workshop) 3.72∗ 1.57 0.572 (observation) 1.94 3.46∗

3 (teaching) 1.854 (feedback)

Note. SS = sum of squares, MS = mean square, ∗p < .05.

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However, other data provided a slightly different pattern. In the immediate posttestinterviews, teachers were asked to identify the intervention component(s) that had themost impact on their confidence. The one most commonly mentioned was the observationphase (50%) as these had helped them learn how to teach science (i.e., cognitive mastery):“Watching somebody go through the lesson each week. Each time it became more familiarto me.” The next most common response was that all the components had influenced them(33%). The remainder referred to the workshop phase (17%), or to teaching (8%) and insitu feedback (8%).

In the delayed posttest interviews, the teachers were also asked to identify the componentthat had most affected their confidence, to provide a long-term perspective. Many teachersmentioned more than one component. The most commonly mentioned (60% of teachers)was the workshop phase, which had enhanced their understanding, or cognitive mastery(“The one we did at the uni. For confidence building I found that really good. [Why didthe uni session affect you in that way?] Learning the process more thoroughly”). Thesecond most commonly mentioned component (50%) was the in situ feedback (e.g., “Toget feedback from someone who’s specifically in that area is good and constructive criticismcan only help us improve to teach, and positives are a bonus”). The observation phase wasmentioned by 40% of the teachers, the main reason being vicarious experience (“I reallyenjoyed watching the student teacher teach. And that I think impacted on my confidence,purely because you’ve got a preservice teacher who did a really good job. And just seeinghow competent she was with it I thought if she can do it, well I should be able to do it”).The teaching phase was mentioned by 30% of teachers, and the main reason given was thatit allowed them to understand how to teach science, thereby enhancing cognitive mastery(“It’s always good to watch other people do things, but I think until you get in and do ityourself you don’t understand some of the little intricacies of it”).

In summary, although there were some discrepancies between the data sources, someclear patterns did emerge. Most importantly, all three data sources identified cognitivemastery as the most important source of self-efficacy, so it had the most powerful impact,from both a short-term and long-term perspective. Interestingly, the teachers’ commentsin the immediate and delayed posttests indicated that they experienced cognitive masteryin not only the workshop phase but also the observation phase and the teaching phase. Insitu feedback was also identified as a highly effective component from both the short-term(questionnaires) and long-term (delayed interviews) perspectives. Vicarious experience wasidentified only in the delayed posttest interviews, and by less than half the teachers, so itseffects were probably not as marked. Interestingly, any effect of enactive mastery wasclearly not as great as the other sources, as it was not mentioned in the delayed posttestinterviews.

DISCUSSION

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of particular sources of information forenhancing the science teaching self-efficacy of practicing elementary teachers. In brief, theresults showed that self-efficacy was increased by the intervention, and the higher levelsremained stable over the 2-year delay period. Some of the sources of efficacy informationwere more effective, particularly cognitive mastery and in situ feedback, but all of thesources (with the notable exception of repetitious familiarity) had positive effect. Thisdiscussion will focus more closely on the changes in self-efficacy and then each of thesources.

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Changes in Self-Efficacy

The interview data and the quantitative analysis of the PSTEB scale of the STEBI werein agreement as both indicated that substantial increases in self-efficacy were generatedby the intervention. Other studies have also demonstrated positive changes in scienceteaching self-efficacy through professional development programs. These programs (e.g.,Khourey-Bowers & Simonis, 2004; Posnanski, 2002) have typically provided teachers withopportunities to develop new content knowledge as well a range of classroom teachingstrategies for science. The present study, however, was uniquely different to these becausethe teachers were taught only one thing, the investigating sequence. They were not providedwith any explicit teaching of science content, and no other teaching techniques wereconsidered. Thus, the intervention did not attempt to prepare teachers for all forms ofscience teaching, or even for all forms of hands-on inquiry, as there are other ways ofdoing hands-on inquiry apart from the investigating sequence. The intervention thereforefocused on only one specialized subskill of science teaching. The important point is that thisresulted in gains in self-efficacy for science teaching in general, as shown by the STEBI-Aand the interviews. Bandura (1997) theorized that this type of situation could occur, as heargued that individuals can be assisted to succeed in more difficult situations by breakingthe tasks down into subskills that can be mastered hierarchically. His view was that evenrelatively small successes of this type can lead people to develop the confidence to operateat much higher levels. The unusual approach taken by the present study provided supportfor this position as it showed that mastery of one specialized subskill resulted in increasedself-efficacy for science teaching as a whole. This was an important finding because it isnot logically possible in any professional development program to teach all the sciencecontent and techniques that teachers will ever need. Instead, if a professional developmentprogram aims to develop teacher self-efficacy, then it should be possible to design a highlyfocused set of experiences that are targeted at specific subskills, to enhance self-efficacy forall science teaching. It should be emphasized though that this is not necessarily a simpleprocess, as in the present study it required 8 weeks of experiences, using a range of carefullyselected techniques, many of which were implemented in the teachers’ own classrooms.

Bandura (1997) also argued that self-efficacy is most malleable in the early years ofteaching. A number of empirical studies have shown that preservice teachers may havevery low confidence for science when they enter their teacher education programs, butwell-constructed science methods courses can be very effective in enhancing their self-efficacy to relatively high levels (Bleicher, 2007; Bleicher & Lindgren, 2005; Palmer, 2001;Watters & Ginns, 1995; Wingfield, Freeman, & Ramsey, 2000). During the first year ofteaching, some studies have noted significant declines in self-efficacy as novice teachersadopt a more realistic and less idyllic perspective (de La Torre Cruz & Casanova Arias, 2007;Woolfolk Hoy & Spero, 2005) although in other cases, the previous gains in self-efficacycan be maintained when appropriate support is provided (Andersen, Dragsted, Evans, &Sorensen, 2004; Wingfield et al., 2000). It has generally been agreed that thereafter, asteachers become more experienced, changes in self-efficacy are more difficult to produceand sustain. For example, Tschannen-Moran et al. (1998) reviewed previous researchon teacher self-efficacy and concluded that “among experienced teachers, efficacy beliefsappear to be quite stable, even when the teachers are exposed to workshops and new teachingmethods” (p. 236). However, the results suggested this was not the case in the present study.All 12 teachers had taught for at least 3 years, and some for many years, yet substantialgains in self-efficacy were recorded, and these were durable over the 2 years of the study.One possible explanation is that although the teachers were experienced in terms of yearsspent teaching, they were relatively inexperienced in the specific realm of science teaching.

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It is often the case that very little science is taught at the elementary level (Appleton &Kindt, 1999) and the pretest interviews indicated that these teachers had little knowledgeof how to teach science, especially hands-on inquiry. Thus, many elementary teachers maynot be equally experienced across all subject areas, and it is possible that significant gainsin self-efficacy may still be made in areas in which they have done relatively little teaching.

Sources of Self-Efficacy

The first research question focused on the distinction between cognitive mastery (i.e.,perceived success in understanding a pedagogical concept) and enactive mastery (i.e., per-ceived success in the actual teaching of science), and this distinction proved useful becausethe two had quite separate effects. Cognitive mastery was identified as the most power-ful source of efficacy information, from both the short-term and long-term perspectives.Teachers experienced cognitive mastery at all three stages of the intervention: the work-shop phase, in which they were explicitly taught how to teach hands-on inquiry using theinvestigating sequence; the observation phase, in which they learned how to teach hands-oninquiry by observing as their classes were taught by preservice teachers; and the teachingphase, in which they learned more about how to do it by practising it themselves. On theother hand, enactive mastery appeared to have had a lower level impact—each teacher wasable to teach a hands-on inquiry lesson to his/her class on two occasions, and although thisdid contribute to teacher confidence, as indicated by 92% of teachers in the questionnaires,it was only mentioned by 50% of teachers at the time of the immediate posttest interviews(1 week after the end of the intervention), and none of the teachers referred to it in thedelayed posttest interviews. The preeminent position of cognitive mastery was surprising,as self-efficacy theory has emphasized that enactive mastery should be the major source ofefficacy information because it can provide individuals with an accurate assessment of theircapability (Bandura, 1997; Tshannen-Moran et al., 1998). Furthermore, a recent large-scalestudy (Tshannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2007) found that mastery experiences from actualteaching accomplishments were the major influence on teacher self-efficacy beliefs. Per-haps the solution to this problem is that in the day-to-day life of teachers there are relativelyfewer opportunities for cognitive mastery, as experiences such as science teaching work-shops and in situ observations are not a normal part of their routine. Thus, enactive masterymay indeed play the dominant role as a source of efficacy information in the day-to-day lifeof teachers, but the results of the present study would suggest that cognitive mastery canbe a more powerful tool when used in the context of a professional development program.

The second research question focused on in situ modeling (i.e., observing one’s classbeing taught by another person). This was intended to provide vicarious experience thatwould enhance confidence by creating the feeling that if another person of similar or lowerability could do it then they could do it too. The delayed posttest interviews indicated that ithad created vicarious experience of this sort among a substantial proportion of teachers (upto 40%). It is therefore concluded that in situ modeling did provide vicarious experience,which suggests it can be an appropriate tool to be used in professional development programsalongside other forms of such as videotaping lessons (Posnanski, 2002), peer-teachingexercises (Khourey-Bowers & Simonis, 2004), and teacher anecdotes (Ross & Bruce,2007). This study also identified an important feature of vicarious experience that has notbeen evidenced from previous research: When one observes another person teach, one canlearn more about how to teach. In other words, at least in relation to teaching, vicariousexperience also results in cognitive mastery. In fact, the questionnaires and immediateposttest interviews indicated that cognitive mastery was the substantial contributor towardthe gains in self-efficacy that occurred during the observation phase. It must be concluded

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that in situ modeling can facilitate both vicarious experience and cognitive mastery, althoughfurther research is needed to clarify the nature of the relationships.

A further point needs to be made about in situ modeling. Some previous studies havedescribed partnership projects in which undergraduate science majors have worked withelementary teachers to enhance their science content knowledge or science literacy (Ross &Mason, 2001; Smith & Trexler, 2006). However, the use of preservice elementary teachersto model teaching practices is unusual, and up to this point we have known very little abouttheir potential to enhance the self-efficacy of elementary teachers. The preservice teacherswho participated in the present study were carefully chosen as they had all completed theirscience methods units, which had provided them with extensive preparation in the specifictechniques that they would be modeling. This had another advantage, as Settlage et al.(2009) found that after completing their science methods courses, preservice elementaryteachers often have a relatively high self-efficacy for science teaching, and it is presumablythis that gave them the confidence to attempt to model it in the present study. In addition,these students had all completed two 4-week teaching blocks in elementary schools, so theirgeneral teaching skills were adequate for the task. The results showed that the observationphase had a positive impact on inservice teacher self-efficacy and there were many writtencomments from the teachers attesting to the good quality of the teaching and its positiveeffect on the children’s learning. This study has therefore provided evidence that the useof preservice teachers to model specific teaching techniques can be a valuable strategy inprofessional development programs, as long as they are adequately prepared for the task.

In situ feedback (i.e., providing encouraging comments to teachers after observation oftheir teaching in their regular classrooms) was the focus of the third research question,and the results showed it had a very powerful impact. In the closed-response questionnaireitems, the teachers rated this factor the highest in terms of affecting their confidence, andin the delayed posttest interviews 50% of the teachers rated it as a major factor in theintervention. This was surprising as verbal persuasion is not usually regarded as a strongsource of efficacy information. In fact, Bandura (1997) argued that it would mainly havea short-term effect at best. Similarly, Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2007) foundthat verbal persuasion was not a significant source of efficacy information for experiencedteachers. However, there are three factors that may have contributed to the effectivenessof in situ feedback in the present study. First, the feedback was provided by a personperceived as an expert by the participants, and as previously suggested (Bandura, 1997)verbal persuasion is most effective when it is provided by a person whose opinion isrespected. For example, one teacher stated, “I think it is important, because in his rolehe is seen as specializing in that field. So it is useful to get feedback from a person inthat position.” Second, the feedback was provided after observing the teacher in action,so it was based on credible evidence of teaching. Third, the opportunity to have someoneobserve and assess teaching quality is something that happens very rarely in the lives ofmany teachers, so when it does happen the novelty of it creates a powerful impact. Forexample, one teacher stated, “It was good to get feedback from someone watching youteach, because you don’t always get that in primary settings” and another stated, “Usuallyteachers are isolated. You work by yourself, so it is pleasant to get feedback about yourteaching style.” Unfortunately, in situ modeling is probably not a viable activity in the dailylife of teachers, as it requires a commitment by experts, who may not necessarily be readilyavailable. However, in the context of professional development programs, in situ feedbackis a technique that has great potential to enhance teacher self-efficacy.

With regard to the fourth research question, the observation phase was partly in-tended to test the idea that repetitious familiarity would help to reduce any negativephysiological/affective responses. However, the study was unable to provide any evidence

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that this was the case—in the questionnaires and interviews, none of the teachers made anycomments that mentioned reduction of fear, stress, or other visceral responses. This wasunexpected, as Bandura (1997) argued that a proficient model can make a daunting taskseem predictable and controllable, which can reduce the observer’s stress or fear of thetask. One possible reason for the discrepancy may have been that fear and stress may nothave been at debilitating levels for these teachers, all of whom were experienced operatorsin the classroom—it might be expected, as teaching is a fairly stressful occupation (Borg,1990; Okebukola & Jegede, 1990; Raschke, Dedrick, Strathe, & Hawkes, 1985) that theseteachers would have experienced many stressful occasions in their teaching of other subjectareas, but would still have gone ahead and persevered with their teaching. Their continuedsurvival as teachers therefore suggests they were not generally prone to debilitating levelsof stress and fear in classroom situations, so perhaps techniques to control these factorswould have little effect.

The fifth research question focused on the relative importance of each of the sources.The preceding discussion has shown that enactive mastery and vicarious experience (inthe form of in situ modeling) were probably less important than cognitive mastery andverbal persuasion (in the form of in situ feedback). Other studies have provided conflictingfindings, however. For example, Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2007) found thatenactive mastery experiences were the main source of efficacy for experienced teachers,whereas Mulholland and Wallace (2001) found that enactive mastery experiences wereimportant for a teacher in the preservice phase, but once in full-time employment vicariousexperiences had a more powerful influence. Thus, there is not yet a consensus as to the mainsources of teacher self-efficacy. There are two possible solutions to this problem. The firstis that each of the main sources of efficacy information (i.e., mastery, vicarious experienceand verbal persuasion) can exist in different forms, and it is possible that not all of theseare equally effective. For example, teachers may experience enactive mastery throughteaching either a full class, or an individual student, or a small group of other teachersin a professional development program. Similarly, there are several forms of vicariousexperience, including actual modeling, symbolic modeling, and videotaped self-modeling(Bandura, 1997), which are not necessarily equally effective. It is therefore possible thatsome of the variation in the results from this and other studies may be due to variations in theeffectiveness of the actual forms of mastery, vicarious experience, and verbal persuasionthat were provided. A second reason to explain the discrepancies is that the sources ofefficacy information that can be provided in professional development programs are oftenquite different from those that teachers may experience on a day-to-day basis. It has beenargued above, for example, that cognitive mastery, in situ modeling, and in situ feedbackare sources that are not likely to commonly occur in the daily lives of teachers, but thatare appropriate for professional development programs. Thus, although other studies havesuggested that sources of efficacy information may vary between expert and novice teachers(Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2007), it is also possible that the particular form ofinformation, and the context in which the information is obtained, may also be factors thatdetermine their relative effectiveness.

When comparing sources of efficacy information, it is also important to consider thedifference between an immediate perspective and a delayed perspective. One of the ad-vantages of the 2-year delay period in this study was that it provided a long-term viewof the activities that teachers had undertaken during the intervention. This was apparent,for example, in the teachers’ responses in the delayed posttest interviews, which providedevidence of vicarious experience that had not been reported in the immediate posttest in-terviews. Thus, it is clear that there can be differences in teachers’ perceptions at differenttimes, and this should be considered in future studies.

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CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The main finding of the study was that within the context of a professional developmentprogram, the provision of cognitive and enactive mastery, in situ modeling, and in situfeedback can result in substantial increases in the science teaching self-efficacy of experi-enced elementary teachers. Furthermore, the changes in self-efficacy are durable for at least2 years. Other findings were as follows:

1. mastery of one specialized subskill, in this case the investigating sequence teachingtechnique, can result in increased self-efficacy for science teaching as a whole;

2. cognitive mastery (i.e., perceived understanding of how to teach science) is the mosteffective source of efficacy information, from those used in this study, and can bederived from explicit teaching (in the workshop phase), in situ modeling (in theobservation phase), and enactive teaching (in the teaching phase);

3. in situ feedback (i.e., when an expert provides encouraging comments to a teacherafter observation of his/her actual teaching with the regular class) also had a powerfuleffect on teacher self-efficacy;

4. in situ modeling (i.e., observing one’s class being taught by another person ofsimilar or lower ability) has multiple benefits, as it can facilitate cognitive masteryand vicarious experience;

5. enactive mastery (i.e., the perceived successful performance of actual classroomteaching) contributed to the development of self-efficacy, but was less effective thancognitive mastery;

6. repetitious familiarity (i.e., observing the same teaching format being used on severaloccasions) was not a source of efficacy information.

This study has a number of implications for practice in professional development pro-grams. First, it showed that a combination of out-of-school experiences, such as workshops,with in-school experiences situated in the teachers’ own classrooms, can be a powerful wayto effect change in teacher beliefs. Not all professional development programs are success-ful in changing the way teachers think and behave (Lee, Hart, Cuevas, & Enders, 2004),but in this study the selected combination of experiences resulted in long-term improve-ments in self-efficacy, along with increased willingness to teach hands-on science lessons.Second, the study showed that mastery of one specialized subskill can result in increasedself-efficacy for science teaching as a whole. This implies that, by focusing on a useful setof subskills it can be possible to increase teachers’ self-efficacy to the point where they arewilling to do more science teaching in general, and thereby begin the process of becom-ing lifelong learners in science education. Third, although Bandura (1997) described fourmain sources of efficacy information (mastery, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion,and physiological/affective states) each of these may be actualized in more than one form,and it is possible that not all the forms are equally effective. The effectiveness of eachform is likely to depend on factors such as the participants (experienced teachers or noviceteachers) as well as the context (day-to-day teaching, in situ professional development, oroff-site professional development), and these factors should be carefully considered by de-signers of professional development programs. Particular techniques that should be usefulinclusions in professional development programs include (1) opportunities for cognitivemastery and in situ feedback, as these were found to be the most powerful sources ofefficacy information within the context of this study; (2) in situ modeling by preserviceteachers, as this can have multiple effects by facilitating cognitive mastery and vicariousexperience; and (3) opportunities for teaching their normal class, as this can provide bothcognitive mastery and enactive mastery.

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However, this study also had a number of limitations, which should be considered wheninterpreting its findings. First, it focused only on science teaching, so the effectiveness ofthe sources of efficacy information may not necessarily be the same in other subject areassuch as English or mathematics, which may perhaps be more taught more regularly at theelementary school level. Second, this study included only teachers who had taught for 3years or more, whereas the factors affecting self-efficacy among preservice teachers andnovice teachers should not be assumed to be the same (Carre & Carter, 1990; Yilmaz-Tuzun& Topcu, 2008; Yoon et al., 2006). Third, only elementary teachers were included in thisstudy, but self-efficacy can be an issue for teachers at the early childhood level (Duran& Duran, 2005), the middle school level (Cole, Ryan, & Ramey, 2003; Saam, Boone, &Chase, 2001), and even the high school level (Gerber, Brovey, & Price, 2001; Schriver& Czerniak, 1999) when faced with the challenge of implementing inquiry science; andit should be emphasized that the factors affecting self-efficacy for specialist secondaryscience teachers are not necessarily the same as those affecting the nonspecialist teachersat the elementary level. Finally, this study focused only on self-efficacy, because it is themain internal constraining factor affecting the teaching of science at the elementary level(Lee & Houseal, 2003) and has been identified as the current issue of major concern forelementary science (Murphy et al., 2007), but it should be remembered that there are severalother external factors, such as availability of resources, time and collegial support, that mayimpact on the teaching of science (Lee & Houseal, 2003).

Finally, this study has indicated some possible lines of investigation that may provefruitful for future research. One of the main aims of many professional developmentprograms has been to enhance the teachers’ elementary science teaching self-efficacy (e.g.,Gerber et al., 2001; Duran & Duran, 2005; Watson, 2006), yet there is no consensus on thebest way to do this, as different projects have adopted different forms of mastery, vicariousexperience, and verbal persuasion. In future studies, it will be important to determine howto obtain the maximum effectiveness from each of these sources by manipulating the waythey are delivered. Another question might be whether all four sources of self-efficacyare necessary in a professional development program, as has been suggested by someauthors (Zeldin et al., 2008) or can some be safely ignored so the focus can be on thosewith the most impact? The answers to these types of questions will inform professionaldevelopment programs that will have maximum effectiveness in developing teacher self-efficacy in elementary science.

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Science Education

Documents

Sources of efficacy information in an inservice program for elementary teachers