Teacher Self-efficacy: Impact on Pedagogy

We report here on research that explored the relationship between teachers’ mathematics self-efficacy and aspects of their pedagogical practices when teaching mathematics. Our data was collected through the National Monitoring Study of Students, a New Zealand study designed to understand student achievement at the primary school level. Achievement data, and contextual and background information was collected from 327 teachers of Year Four (aged 8/9) and Year Eight (aged 11/12) students across 181 nationally representative schools. A self-efficacy scale was constructed to measure teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, and teacher questionnaire items were grouped into categories based on pedagogical approaches outlined by Anthony and Walshaw (2009). Teachers who reported high mathematics self-efficacy were found to more likely enact pedagogies known to be effective in the mathematics classroom.