Social Support Influences The Teacher Efficacy

Homebound Instruction is a kind of individualized education mode in which teachers from compulsory education schools provide free educational services or rehabilitation training to children with moderate or severe disabilities who cannot go to school in China.Homebound Instruction is one of the important supplementary forms of special education.The mainly teachers are composed of part-time ordinary teachers and special educators.The teacher efficacy of homebound teachers means the teachers’ perception and belief in their ability to effectively complete the teaching tasks and achieve the teaching goals.Social support is one of the external factors that affect teachers’ sense of efficacy and It contains the actual support and subjective support obtained by teachers through all their social networks.Previous studies generally confirmed that teacher efficacy has an important effect on students’ academic achievements,learning motivation,teachers’teaching input,and classroom management,etc.What difficulties would teachers meet in teaching?Do they have enough confidence in their teaching?Is there any professional confidence and control of the teaching process?Is there sufficient social support for teaching implementation?Therefore,there would be of great significance to explore the social support and teachers’ sense of efficacy.In this study,the Social Support Questionnaire and the Teacher Efficacy Questionnaire were used to investigate the social support and teacher efficacy of homebound teachers from Fujian province.23 teachers were recruited and divided into experimental group and control group randomly.The experimental group received group intervention for 4 weeks,while the control group did not.The two groups were evaluated by the Social Support Questionnaire and the Teacher Efficacy Questionnaire before and after intervention.The experimental group was interviewed to evaluate the effect of group counselling on social support and teacher efficacy in the end of the intervention.The results were as follows:1.The total scores of social support and the two dimensions were in an upper-middle level,and the subjective support was significantly higher than the actual support.The total scores of teacher efficacy and personal teaching efficacy were also in an upper-middle level,and the general teaching efficacy was significantly lower than the individual teaching efficacy.2.The total score of social support and actual support of homebound teachers had significant differences in the main job and the disability category of students,and the subjective support had significant differences in the disability category of children.The general teaching efficacy of homebound teachers had significant differences in education background,total length of home schooling and years of teaching.The teacher efficacy had significant differences in the disability grade and category of children,and there had significant differences in the disability category of children as well.Homebound teachers’ personal teaching efficacy had significant differences in the disability category of children.The subjective support played an effective predictive role to the teacher efficacy.The actual support and the subjective support positively predicted the individual teaching efficacy,while the social support and two dimensions could not significantly predict the general teaching efficacy.3.Four weeks of group counselling(2.5 hours per week)could significantly improve the social support and teacher efficacy of homebound teacher,which was mainly reflected in the improvement of subjective support and the general teaching efficacy with no significant change in actual support and the individual teaching efficacy.The results of qualitative study indicated that the effects of group counselling on social support was mainly reflected in the improvement of subjective support,and the therapeutic factor included:emotional support of groups,more effective ways of obtaining parents’ support and deep understanding of children.The effects of group counselling on teaching efficacy was mainly reflected in the alleviation of negative emotions,improvement of teaching ability and promotion of teaching confidence.The therapeutic factor included cognitive adjustment,the discovery of universality and instillation of hope;acquisition of new knowledge.