The Role of Teachers’ Self- and Collective-Efficacy Beliefs on Their Job Satisfaction and Experienced Emotions in School

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating a) teachers’ job satisfaction, experienced emotions at school, self-efficacy and school collective-efficacy beliefs; b) the influential role of self-efficacy in the school collective-efficacy beliefs, and in the impact of the school collective-efficacy beliefs on job satisfaction and emotions; and c) the effect of self- and collective-efficacy beliefs on the impact of job satisfaction on emotions. The sample comprised 268 elementary school teachers (113 male, 155 female), who completed the scales at the middle of a school year. The results showed that a) the teachers experienced form moderate negative emotions to moderate positive emotions at school, particularly in the context-task- and self-related emotions; b) teachers’ self-efficacy had positive effect on school collective-efficacy beliefs and job satisfaction, and on the impact of collective efficacy on job satisfaction; c) self-efficacy, collective efficacy and job satisfaction, as a group, explained from a small to moderate amount of the variance of the emotions, while the impact of job satisfaction on the emotions was to a significant extent mediated by teachers’ perceptions about their school collective efficacy; and d) self-efficacy had direct and indirect effect, through the interaction of collective efficacy and job satisfaction, on the emotions. The findings are discussed for their applications in educational practice and future research.