An Investigation On High School English Teachers’ Sense Of Self-efficacy In Hechi City

Since the mid-1990s, an increasing number of scholars from home and abroad have devoted themselves to "teacher research", including the study of teachers’behavior, belief and cognition. Teachers’sense of self-efficacy, which is an important part of teachers’ belief, has become a hot area of research for several years. Teachers’sense of self-efficacy refers to a teacher’s belief in his or her capability to organize and execute courses of action required to successfully accomplish a specific teaching task in a particular context (Tschannen-Moran et al.,1998:233). It not only has an effect on teachers’teaching behavior, but also influences students’learning behaviors and outcomes.The new curriculum reform, which was carried out in Guangxi in 2012, has put forward higher requirements for English teachers and English teaching. What’s the current situation of high school English teachers’sense of self-efficacy under the context of the new curriculum reform? This question still lacks sufficient data support. Therefore, under the guidance of Bandura’s self-efficacy theory, the researcher designed English Teachers’Sense of Self-efficacy Scale and School Environment Scale on the basis of the scales developed by Tschannen-Moran et al. to study high school English teachers’sense of self-efficacy in Hechi City with the aim of answering the following questions:(1) What is the current situation of high school English teachers’sense of self-efficacy in Hechi City under the context of the new curriculum reform? (2) Does English teachers’sense of self-efficacy differ in demographic variables like ages, genders, teaching experience, professional titles and educational levels? (3) Do school environment factors correlate with English teachers’sense of self-efficacy? (4) What factors can predict high school English teachers’sense of self-efficacy?To carry out the investigation, the researcher chose 120 English teachers from six high schools in Hechi City and took them as the subjects. The total number of questionnaires handed out was 120 copies and 97 effective copies were taken back. The data collected from the questionnaires were analyzed by SPSS-18 version, and the function of Descriptive Statistics, Independent T Test, One-Way ANOVA, Pearson Correlation and Multiple Linear Regression analyses were utilized to analyze related data. Meanwhile, six participants selected from the subjects of the questionnaire were asked to receive an interview in order to provide powerful evidence for the analysis results of the questionnaire. The findings were mainly summarized into four aspects:Firstly, Hechi high school English teachers’ overall sense of self-efficacy is at an up-middle level. Teachers’ efficacy for classroom management gets the highest score while efficacy for instructional strategies gets the lowest.Secondly, among different demographic variables, genders, teaching experience and professional titles have significant effect on English teachers’sense of self-efficacy. However, English teachers’ sense of self-efficacy has no significant difference among teachers in different age groups and with different educational levels.Thirdly, high school English teachers don’t think much of their school environment. And there is a significant positive relationship between school environment factors and English teachers’ sense of self-efficacy.Lastly, among various variables, the three variables, namely professional titles, interpersonal relation and principle influence, can predict high school English teachers’ sense of self-efficacy. The combination of the three variables can interpret 35% of the variance in high school English teachers’ sense of self-efficacy. Additionally, interpersonal relation can interpret 21% of the variance independently.Based on the findings, the researcher put forward some suggestions for teachers and education sectors on how to improve teachers’ sense of self-efficacy. And the limitations of the present study were also pointed out.