Teacher Efficacy: In Terms of Teachers' Conceptions of the Nature of Ability and Their Motivational Styles

The construct of teacher efficacy" as framed by Bandura (1977) was investigated along with such affective characteristics as teachers' conception about the nature of intelligence or ability and their motivational style in a correlational research design. The results confirmed the two factors of teacher efficacy; self efficacy: and 'teaching efficacy: as uncorrelated and independent dimensions. The latter strongly correlated with teachers' conception of human ability as an incremental quality. Teachers' motivational styles (intrinsic, extrinsic) which were uncorrelated were moderately associated with conception of ability as incremental quality. Subjects with high teaching efficacy' endorsed incremental beliefs about intelligence significantly higher than low scorers, however, the dimension of personal efficacy' also contributed moderately to incremental belief scores. Persons high on both factors scored highly on incremental beliefs about intelligence and vice versa. Neither level of teacher education courses nor length of teaching experience, as teacher characteristics, influenced teacher efficacy score. Beliefs about ability as an incremental quality, as a positive affective, dispositional characteristic, appears to underlie teacher efficacy beliefs.