Rural, suburban, and urban schools: The impact of school setting on the efficacy beliefs and attributions of student teachers

Abstract

This study investigated student teachers' efficacy beliefs, to determine if school setting (i.e., rural, suburban, and urban) impacted teachers' sense of efficacy. Each setting group exhibited significant increases in teachers' sense of efficacy following student teaching. The urban student teachers exhibited significantly lower teachers' sense of efficacy. We also examined the attributions (external or internal) the student teachers made following student teaching. The urban student teachers did not make more external attributions than the rural and suburban student teachers, and the patterns of the self-serving attributional bias as well as the fundamental attribution error were apparent.