Relationships among experience, teacher efficacy, and attitudes

Teaching and Teacher Education, Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 451~158, 1997 O 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd All rights reserved. Printed in Great Briton 0742-051X/97 $I 7.00 + 0.00

Pergamon

PII: S0742-051X(96)00045-5

RELATIONSHIPS AMONG EXPERIENCE, TEACHER EFFICACY, AND ATTITUDES TOWARD THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL INNOVATION

G. G H A I T H and H. Y A G H I American Universityof Beirut, New York, U.S.A. Abstract--This article reports a study undertaken to investigate the relationships among teachers experience, efficacy,and attitudes toward the implementation of instructional innovation. Data were gathered through three questionnaires administered to 25 teachers immediatelyfollowinga four-day staff developmentprogram on cooperativelearning. Results showed that experiencewas negativelycorrelated,personal teachingefficacypositivelycorrelated,and general teachingefficacy not correlated with teachers' attitudes toward implementingnew instructional practices. Implications for instructional improvementand future research are discussed. © 1997ElsevierScienceLtd

Teachers' willingness to implement new instructional practices is a key factor influencing educational improvement. Most school improvement efforts involve implementation of new practices. These practices may require minor changes in certain classroom activities or may mandate an entirely new curriculum or a very different instructional approach. Furthermore, several variables were identified in the literature as determinants of teachers' willingness to implement instructional innovations. These variables include the degree to which the innovations are aligned with teachers' present practices (congruence) and teachers' estimates of the needed extra time and effort to implement the innovations (cost) (Doyle & Ponder, 1977). The identified variables also include teachers' perceptions of the importance and difficulty of implementing innovations (Sparks, 1983), and teachers' experience and sense of efficacy (Guskey, 1988). Thus, it is important to understand what factors influence teachers' attitudes toward the implementation of recommended practices. Research has shown that the aforementioned variables i.e., congruence, cost; difficulty, and

importance did indeed influence teachers' degree of implementing a new program or instructional innovation. For example, based on an analysis of results from five studies, Mohlman, Coladarci, and Gage (1982) maintained that congruence and cost influenced teachers' degree of implementation. That is, teachers were willing to implement instructional practices that are similar to their current practices and less costly. Likewise, Sparks (1983) reported that teachers' perceptions of the importance of the new practices were positively correlated with implementation; meanwhile, teachers' ratings of the difficulty of implementation were found to be highly individualistic and unrelated to willingness to implement new practices. Along similar lines, Guskey (1988) explored the relationship among teachers' sense of efficacy and their attitudes toward the implementation of mastery learning as a form of instructional innovations. The concept of teacher efficacy has its roots in the construct of self-efficacy proposed by Bandura in 1977 (Anderson, Greene, & Loewen, 1988; Ross, 1994). Bandura hypothesized that peoples' belief about the action-outcome relationship (a 451

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belief that X leads to Y) is not a sufficient determinant of behavior. Rather, behavior is more likely to be determined by peoples' selfefficacy (a belief that they can do X) in order to produce certain outcomes. Furthermore, Bandura (1977) maintained that peoples' interpretations of past experience lead them to foresee how well they will be able to perform specific tasks. These anticipations then influence their willingness to engage in new tasks, exert effort, and persist in the face of adversity (Ross, 1994). The construct of teacher efficacy was first conceptualized in two Rand Corporation studies (Dembo & Gibson, 1985). These studies concluded that teachers' sense of efficacy was one of the best predictors of the "percentage of goals achieved, amount of teacher change, improved student performance, and continuation of both project methods and material" (Dembo & Gibson, 1985, p. 173). In addition, other studies have shown that teacher efficacy contributes to student achievement in language arts and social studies (Anderson et al., 1988; Ashton & Webb, 1986; Ross, 1992) and in mathematics (Ashton & Webb, 1986; Moore & Esselman, 1992; Ross & Cousins, 1993). There is also evidence linking teacher efficacy to enhanced student motivation (Midgley, Feldlaufer, & Ecclesl 1989), increased selfesteem (Borton, 1991), better self-direction (Rose & Medway, 1981), and more positive attitudes toward school (Miskel, McDonald, & Bloom, 1983). Previous research has also shown some consistent findings regarding the development of teacher efficacy. Studies have shown that teacher efficacy is more likely to increase during the period of preservice training, particularly during the first practice teaching episode (Hoy & Woolfolk, 1990; Housego, 1990; Brousseau, Book, & Byers, 1988). However, there is much greater stability in teacher efficacy among inservice teachers with some decline with more years of experience (Anderson et al., 1988; Moore & Esselman, 1992; Guskey & Passero, 1993; Korevaar, 1990). Furthermore, it has been shown that teacher efficacy may be enhanced through inservice training (Stein & Wang, 1988; Ross, 1994) and that teacher efficacy is positively related to teachers' willingness to

implement instructional innovations (Guskey, 1988). The only reported investigation of the relationship of teacher efficacy to attitudes toward implementing instruction innovation (Guskey, 1988) indicated a significant relationship. Guskey (1988) reported that teachers' experience was not significantly related to any of the determinants of their willingness to implement instructional innovation. Rather, it was teachers' sense of personal efficacy, that is the degree to which teachers believed that they can bring about student learning, that influenced their attitudes toward implementing new practices. For instance, Guskey (1988) found that the more efficacious teachers rated the new practices as more congruent with their current practices, more important, and less difficult to implement than did their less efficacious counterparts. However, Guskey (1988) reported that the cost of implementing instructional innovations and teachers' ratings o.f the importance of these innovations were unrelated. Furthermore, teachers who rated the innovations as congruent with current practices rated them as less difficult to implement, requiring less work, and are highly important. Conversely, teachers who perceived the new practices as different from their current practices rated them as difficult to implement, requiring a lot of extra work, and less important. Furthermore, teachers' ratings of the difficulty of implementation was negatively related to their ratings of the importance of the new practices. The work of Guskey (1988) suggests that teachers' sense of professional efficacy is a strong determinant of adopting instructional innovations irrespective of how long they have been in the profession. But can Guskey's findings be generalized into other forms of instructional innovations? The Guskey (1988) study focused on mastery learning as an instructional innovation which, according to Block and Burns (1976) and Guskey and Gates (1986), requires only minor changes in the instructional practices of most teachers. Furthermore, the treatment in Guskey's study consisted of only a "one-day presentation and discussion of the theory and application of mastery learning procedures" (Guskey, 1988, p. 64).

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Consequently, the primary intent of the present study was to explore the generalizability of the Guskey (1988) findings by examining the relationships among teachers' experience, sense of both personal and general teaching efficacy, and their attitudes toward the implementation of cooperative learning as a form of instructional innovation. Although several researchers (Evans & Tribble, 1986; Guskey, 1988; Greenwood, Olejnik, & Parkay, 1990) treated teacher efficacy as a uni-dimensional construct, we opted to use the two theoretically and empirically distinct dimensions of teacher efficacy as determined by Gibson and Dembo (1984) and Woolfolk and Hoy (1990). These dimensions were defined by Anderson et al. (1988) as:

perception of the congruence, cost, importance and difficulty of implementing STAD? Is there a significant difference between the low and high personal teaching efficacy teachers in their perception of the congruence, cost, importance, and difficulty of implementing STAD? Is there a significant difference between the low and high general teaching efficacy teachers in their perception of the congruence, cost, importance, and difficulty of implementing STAD?

• (a) personal teaching efficacy as the teachers' own expectations that they will be able to perform the actions that lead to student learning, and • (b) general teaching efficacy as the belief that the teacher population's ability to perform these actions is limited by factors beyond school control.

The data for this investigation were gathered from sixteen middle school teachers and nine high school teachers (N=25). These teachers participated in an in-service staff development program conducted at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Twenty teachers were females and five teachers were males. In general, these teachers were experienced teachers, with an average of "6.36 years. The range of experience was21 years with a standard deviation of 5.45.

Likewise, we chose the cooperative learning method of Student Teams Achievement Divisions (STAD) as the form of instructional innovation. This is primarily because previous research has shown that higher teaching efficacy is associated with the use of challenging and difficult techniques such as cooperative learning (Wax & Dutton, 1991). Furthermore, the STAD method has been consistently shown to be among the more effective cooperative learning methods in promoting student achievement (Okebukola, 1986; Slavin, 1990), developing cross-racial friendships (Slavin & Oickle, 1981), promoting inter-ethnic positive attitudes (Sharan, Kussell, Hertz-Lazarowitz, Bejarano, Ravis, & Sharan, 1984), and increasing students' locus of control and time on task (Slavin, 1978; 1980). The study addressed the following questions: To what extent are the determinants of teachers' attitude toward implementing instructional innovation (experience, personal teaching efficacy, general teaching efficacy, congruence, cost, importance, difficulty) internally correlated? Is there a significant difference between the experienced and inexperienced teachers in their

Method Sample

Instrumen ts

Teachers completed a demographic questionnaire specifically designed for this investigation and included questions relative to educational attainment, teaching experience, gender, and school and level at which they teach. Teachers' sense of efficacy was then measured with a 16-item self-report instrument developed by Gibson and Dembo (1984). This instrument is recognized as a standard measure of professional efficacy. Respondents used a six-point agree/disagree scale to respond to nine statements which measure personal teaching efficacy and seven statements which measure general teaching efficacy. Two composite scores (personal teaching efficacy and general teaching efficacy) were produced by adding the scores on the nine and seven items respectively measuring personal and general efficacy. The coding of the negatively stated items was inverted to ensure that high scores meant high efficacy on all items of the scale.

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To assess teachers' attitudes toward the implementation of instructional innovation, we used the Guskey (1988) measure of teachers' attitudes toward the implementation of instructional innovation. Respondents were asked to rate on a series of five-point Likert-type scale the congruence, cost, difficulty, and importance of applying the STAD method. Congruence was measured with an item which asked, "How similar is STAD to the way you presently conduct your classes?" Ratings ranged from very different to very similar. To assess cost, teachers were asked, "How much extra work will it take for you to implement STAD in your classes?" Ratings for this item ranged from no extra work to lots of extra work. The item addressing difficulty was "How difficult will it be to implement STAD in your class?" Again, the rating scale changed from very easy to very difficult. Finally, importance was measured with an item which asked "How important do you believe it is for teachers to use practices like STAD?" Ratings ranged from unimportant to extremely important.

Procedure The Division of Education Programs at the American University of Beirut announced an inservice training program on cooperative learning. The participants in this program were delegated by 16 schools from all regions in the country. The program focused on the cooperative learning method of STAD and lasted for four days. Each day consisted of two sessions two hours each. First, the five major components of the STAD method (class presentation, teams study, individual quizzes, determining instructional improvement points, team recognition) were shown on video (ASCD, 1990). The respondents then observed the five components in action as demonstrated by the workshop implementer (one of the researchers) following which they were grouped into five teams of four members and one team of five members. All the study participants successfully developed and demonstrated lesson plans based on the STAD components with their own curriculum and teaching context in mind. They also received feedback from their colleagues and the workshop implementer. Finally, they completed the study instruments.

Analysis Two statistical analysis procedures were needed in order to study the issues in the questions under investigation. First, productmoment correlation coefficients were computed for all variables in order to examine the relationships among the determinants of teachers' attitude toward implementing STAD. Second, a series of t-tests was conducted in order to determine if teachers' attitudes differed by experience (short versus long), personal teaching efficacy (low versus high), and general teaching efficacy (low versus high). The three variables of experience, personal teaching efficacy, and general teaching efficacy were categorized into low and high categories based on the median scores.

Results

Relationships among variables Table 1 displays the correlation coefficients among the determinants of teachers' attitude toward implementing instructional innovation and reveals the following patterns: First, teachers' experience was negatively correlated with their sense of general teaching efficacy ( r = - . 5 0 ) and to their ratings of the importance of implementing instructional innovation (r=-.57). Meanwhile, experience was positively correlated with teachers' ratings of the difficulty of using STAD (r = .43). Second, teachers' sense of personal teaching efficacy was found to be positively correlated with their ratings of STAD as congruent with their practices (r = .62), less difficult to implement (r=-.39), and important to use (r =.55). Meanwhile, teachers' sense of general teaching efficacy was found to be related only to the importance of using STAD (r=.46). Furthermore, the correlation between personal and general teaching efficacy was not statistically significant (r = .08). Third, teachers' ratings of the cost of implementing STAD was positively correlated with their ratings of the difficulty of implementing this method (r=.52). Meanwhile, teachers' ratings of the difficulty of implementation was negatively related to their ratings of the importance of using this method (r = -.40).

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Table 1

Intercorrelations Among the Variables (n = 25) Experience Experience Personal efficacy General efficacy Congruence Cost Difficulty Importance

-.23 -.50* -.26 .11 .43* -.57"

Personal efficacy

General efficacy

.08 .62* -.09 -.39* .55*

.09 .24 .01 .46*

Congruence

Cost

Difficulty

-.21 -.18 .37

.52* .06

-.40*

*Significant at p < .05.

Short and Long Experience

The more efficacious teachers considered STAD as more congruent with their practices than did the less efficacious teachers. Similarly, the more efficacious teachers rated STAD as more important to implement than did their less efficacious counterparts. Meanwhile, there were no significant differences between the two categories of low and high efficacious teachers with regard to their perceptions of the cost and difficulty of implementing STAD.

The results of the t-tests on teachers' years of experience and their perceptions of the congruence, cost, difficulty and importance of implementing STAD are shown in Table 2. Significant effects are presented as follows. The less experienced teachers perceived STAD as more congruent with their present practices than did their more experienced counterparts. Similarly, the more experienced teachers rated STAD as more difficult to implement than did the less experienced teachers. Furthermore, the less experienced teachers rated STAD as more important to implement than did the more experienced teachers.

Low and High General Teaching Efficacy The results of the t-tests on teachers' general efficacy and their perceptions of the congruence, cost, difficulty and importance of implementing STAD are shown in Table 4 and did not show any significant effects.

Low and High Personal Teaching Efficacy The results of the t-tests on teachers' personal efficacy and their perceptions of the congruence, cost, difficulty and importance of implementing STAD are shown in Table 3. Significant effects are presented as follows.

Discussion The results of this study suggest four aspects of interest. First, the study shows that experi-

Table 2

t-Tests Results for Teaching Experience Experience Short

Congruence Cost Difficulty Importance

Long

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

t-value

4.08 3.08 2.66 5.16

1.16 1.24 1.07 .71

3.23 3.76 3.46 4.46

1.30 1.16 1.05 .51

1.73" -1.42 -1.87" 2.80**

*Significant at p