Analysis of the self-efficacy sense in Chilean teachers from gender and experience perspectives

Abstract

During the past three decades, research studies regarding the theory of teachers´ self-efficacy not only have tried to explain the teaching context and meet the demands set by the schools, politics and society, but they have also positioned the important value that this concept has in the teaching practices. The objective of the current study is to describe the feelings of self-efficacy in the teaching practices of an overall sample consisting of 544 Chilean teachers. So as to achieve such purpose, we translated and adapted the questionnaire entitled “Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale” (TSES) created by Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk (2001). We should also emphasize the fact that the validation process revealed high interest indexes for both its factorial experience and its reliability. On the other hand, the findings suggest that gender is not a variable affecting these results, unlike what other studies and teaching experience have reported.