The relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ collective efficacy beliefs, teaching experience and perception of teacher empowerment

Abstract

The present study aimed to contribute to the current findings of the relationship between collective efficacy perceptions of EFL teachers and their perception of teacher empowerment. To this end, 147 Iranian EFL teachers from a well-known institute in Tehran participated in the study. The instruments used were two questionnaires: Collective Teacher Efficacy Scale-Short Form and School Participant Empowerment Scale. A semi-structured interview was also conducted on 10 EFL teachers at the end of the study to discover what would be revealed from their attitudes toward different subscales of teacher empowerment and collective efficacy perceptions. The quantitative data were analyzed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation and independent samples t-test. Similarly, the qualitative data were also analyzed to find out the participants’ attitudes toward different subscales on the two questionnaires and also to see to what extent those attitudes were similar to one another. The results showed that there was a positive, albeit weak, relationship between the two constructs (teacher empowerment and collective efficacy perceptions). It was also found that there was no significant difference between experienced and inexperienced teachers in terms of their perceptions of teacher empowerment and teacher collective efficacy.

Keywords

• collective efficacy
• teacher collective efficacy
• self-efficacy
• teacher self-efficacy
• empowerment
• teacher empowerment