Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Education

Supervisor

Faez, Farahnaz

Abstract

This dissertation investigates English language teacher self-efficacy beliefs. Based in Bandura’s (1997) sociocognitive perspective, teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, their beliefs about their capabilities to enact various teaching tasks, have been shown to be impactful on numerous aspects of teachers’ professional lives. Research in both general education and language teacher education has shown that more efficacious teachers are often more motivated, exert a greater effort when teaching, have a higher morale, and can even positively impact their students.

Drawing on survey data from N = 571 participants across a variety of English language teaching contexts, this thesis takes an integrated article format and addresses unresolved issues in English language teacher self-efficacy research. Chapters 1 and 2 outline the thesis and provide background literature and the thesis’ theoretical perspective. Chapter 3 consists of the first research portion of this thesis and outlines the creation of a new English language teacher self-efficacy scale. Initial items are drawn from various TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) standards documents and then subjected to exploratory factor analysis. The final scale, consisting of 26 items across 6 unique factors, serves as the research instrument for the remainder of the dissertation.

Chapter 4 investigates the self-efficacy beliefs of English language teachers in North America (Canada and the United States). It looks at what their levels of self-efficacy are, and also if/how teachers’ classroom proficiency, general language proficiency, experience, language teacher education (LTE) qualifications, and linguistic identity impact this self-efficacy. Utilizing a series of simultaneous multiple regression analyses, results show that teachers’ classroom proficiency is the most significant predictor of teachers’ self-efficacy, but general English proficiency, teaching experience and linguistic identity are also significantly impactful as well.

Chapter 5 takes a similar methodological approach and investigates the self-efficacy beliefs of non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs) across a variety of EFL contexts. The results again show the importance of teachers’ self-perceived classroom proficiency as this significantly predicted teachers’ self-efficacy across all of the factors. The dissertation ends with Chapter 6 that serves as a final discussion for the entire thesis followed by this study’s limitations and potential future directions.

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