Relations of science teaching self-efficacy with instructional practices, student achievement and support, and teacher job satisfaction

Abstract

Conceptual models of the effects of teacher self-efficacy hold that efficacy beliefs are related to important teacher (e.g., well-being) and student (e.g., achievement) outcomes both directly and indirectly via teacher practices. Surprisingly little work, however, has been conducted to test these propositions in integrative models comprising both teacher and student outcomes. Even less work has examined the cross-national generalizability of these relations notwithstanding the centrality of teachers’ national contexts to their beliefs. In the present study, we proposed and tested a model of the associations of teachers’ science teaching self-efficacy with not only their job satisfaction but also students’ science achievement and perceived support during science lessons both directly and indirectly via teachers’ inquiry-based science teaching practices. We tested the model across teachers and their students from the Czech Republic and France, comprising over 400 teachers and over 7500 students in total. Results showed direct positive relations of teachers’ science teaching self-efficacy beliefs with the extent of use of inquiry science teaching practices and job satisfaction. Additionally, inquiry teaching was found to be positively related to classroom levels of science achievement. Although science teaching self-efficacy was not directly linked with classroom-average science achievement, evidence was obtained for an indirect association via inquiry-based science teaching. The proposed model was found to generalize across the Czech and French samples.