The Impact of Collective Efficacy on Student Achievement (Part 2)

In “The Impact of Collective Efficacy on Student Achievement (Part 1)” we gave an overview of the definition and effect size of collective efficacy. Jenni Donohoo writes in “Fostering Collective Teacher Efficacy: Three Enabling Conditions”

According to the Visible Learning Research (Hattie, 2012), this is more than double the effect size of feedback (0.75). Collective teacher efficacy is beyond three times more powerful and predictive than socio-economic status (0.52). It is also greater than three times more likely to influence student achievement than student motivation and concentration, persistence, and engagement (0.48).

In Part 2, we discuss Influences on Collective Efficacy.

Influences on Self Efficacy

Self-efficacy expectations develop from a variety of sources, including performance feedback, previous history, and social influence. The major influences on efficacy beliefs are: mastery experience, vicarious experience  (modeling), physiological arousal, and verbal persuasion. All four of these sources are important in the interpretation and cognitive processing of information.

Mastery Experience

Successes and failures in completing tasks have strong effects on self-efficacy. Recurrent successes raise efficacy perceptions; regular failures produce self-doubts and reduce self-efficacy, especially if failure occurs early in a task sequence and does not reflect a lack of Efficacy is facilitated as gradual accomplishments build skills, coping abilities, and exposure needed for task performance.

Modeling and vicarious experience

Modeling and vicarious experience affect self-perceptions of efficacy through two processes. First, by providing knowledge. Watching others teach and work with students in skillful and adept ways conveys effective strategies for managing similar tasks in different situations. Second, people partly judge their capabilities using social comparisons. Seeing or visualizing people similar to themselves successfully perform a task can raise teachers’ personal beliefs about self-efficacy. By observing others modeling, individuals convince themselves that if others can do it, they can at least achieve some improvement in their own performance.

Psychological Influences

People also rely partly on information from their physiological and affective states to judge their Individuals make judgments about anticipated performance based on positive arousal such as excitement, enthusiasm getting “psyched” (Schunk, Pintrich, & Meese, 2008), as well as on negative factors such as fear, fatigue, stress, and anxiety. Thus, situations that are initially perceived as stressful or threatening contribute to a teacher’s beliefs about capability and functioning.

Social persuasion

Social Persuasion is another means of strengthening teachers’ convictions that they have the capabilities to achieve their goals. Targeted training, workshops, professional development activities, and feedback about how teachers’ capabilities match contextual demands can strengthen a teachers’ conviction that they have the capabilities to be successful. To the extent that verbal persuasion boosts self ­efficacy and teachers try hard to succeed, verbal persuasion can promote the development of skills.