An Empirical Study On Preservice English Teacher’s Teacher Efficacy

Since1970s, researchers from western country have conducted researches in the area of teacher efficacy. There are mainly two theoretical models, Lotter’s Locus of Control and Bandura’s Self-efficacy theory. Teacher efficacy, which is termed as one of the most important parts of teacher belief, is proved to be one of the most important factors in effective teaching, one of the vital factors which influence teachers’teaching behaviors, and also one of the few factors about teachers which are related to student performances. And it contains general teaching efficacy and personal teaching efficacy. On the research of teacher efficacy, most of the researches have focused on the group of inservice teachers, while the researches on the group of preservice teachers (often referred to as "student teachers") are relatively rare. In1997, Bandura stated that teacher efficacy can be remolded, when it is shaped, it cannot be changed easily. Meanwhile, Woolfolk and Hoy (1990) found that teacher efficacy can be changed through specificity of tasks and teaching experience, as the teaching experience added, the level of teacher efficacy advanced. Thus, it is essential to examine the level of preservice teachers’ teacher efficacy. In this thesis, the author adopted the Teacher Efficacy Scale which was made by Woolfolk and Hoy in1993, and combined with an interview, and selected120senior students from Mu Danjiang Normal College randomly. The aim of the thesis is to explore the level of preservice teachers’ teacher efficacy, and provide some references for the training and development of preservice teachers. The questionnaire contains Teacher Efficacy Scale and the Personal Information. The collected data is processed by SPSS.17.0. The author adopts the means of descriptive statistics, independent sample T-test, One-way ANOVA, and multiple regression analysis to expound the teacher efficacy of preservice teachers. The research produces a number of key findings:1. Preservice teachers’ general teaching efficacy is higher than their personal teaching efficacy. Preservice English teachers’ teacher efficacy was not affected by gender and willingness of their profession. And a significant relation between the level, the type of educational practices school and personal teaching efficacy. On the other hand, there is no significant difference between the level, the type of educational practices school and general teaching efficacy.2. There is no significant difference between educational practices and preservice English teachers’ teacher efficacy. For the level of overall teacher efficacy, six months of teaching experience is suitable for preservice teachers to acquire teaching knowledge and improve their teacher efficacy.3. In this study, there are only three variables which can predict the teacher efficacy of preservice English teacher. Score of TEM-8, and willingness can predict personal teaching efficacy, while teaching experience can predict both personal teaching efficacy and general teaching efficacy. Through the analysis of regression coefficients, we can get the result that teaching experience is the best predictor of preservice teachers’ teacher efficacy.