Abstract:
The present study was intended to investigate possible relationships of the
development of EFL teachers’ possible selves with teacher efficacy and
students’ achievement. Eighty seven teachers were selected through
convenience sampling from different Language Institutes participated in this
study and filled in EFL teachers’ Possible Selves Development
Questionnaire as well as Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (TSES). The
participants were also requested to specify the mean scores of the
achievement tests they administered to their students in the previous terms.
The results of data analyses indicated significant relationships of teachers’
possible selves development with their self-efficacy and students’
achievement. To investigate which components of possible selves might
have more predictive power in predicting teacher’s self-efficacy and
students’ achievement, the researchers employed regression analysis. The
four subscales of possible selves – ideal, ought-to, actual, and feared selveswere
found to be good predictors of teacher self-efficacy and only three
subscales of possible selves including ideal, ought-to, and actual selves were
strongly correlated with students’ achievement. The researchers concluded
by suggesting that a sense of self-efficacy as well as a concern for students’
achievement as two main senses of selves should be incorporated into the
possible selves of EFL teachers through implementing specific pre-service
as well as in-service teacher education programs.
Machine summary:
Department of English, Sanandaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj, Iran Received: 23 May 2019 Revision: 8 August 2019 Accepted: 27 September 2019 Published online: 20 December 2019 Abstract The present study was intended to investigate possible relationships of the development of EFL teachers’ possible selves with teacher efficacy and students’ achievement.
Eighty seven teachers were selected through convenience sampling from different Language Institutes participated in this study and filled in EFL teachers’ Possible Selves Development Questionnaire as well as Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (TSES).
Research shows that teachers with a higher sense of self-efficacy enjoy higher levels of job satisfaction (Caprara, Barbaranelli, Steca, & Malone, 2006; Tschannen, Moran, & Hoy, 2002), have higher degrees of commitment to their teaching practice (Ware & Kitsantas, 2007), are less vulnerable to burnout (Shaalvik & Shaalvik, 2007), and create a better learning atmosphere for their students (Gencer & Cakiroglu, 2007).
The relationship between motivation in the traditional sense and teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs has been investigated in previous studies (Canrinus, Helms-Lorenz, Beijaard, Buitink, & Hofman, 2012; Caprara, Barbaranelli, Steca, & Malone, 2006; Kwon, 2016; Sutton & Wheatley, 2003; Watt & Richardson, 2008; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000).
2. Literature Review The present study is theoretically based on two dominant psychological theories: possible selves theory (Markus & Nurius, 1986) and self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987) which have already been applied to motivation and L2 self studies by Dornyei (2005, 2009, & 2010) and teacher development by Kubanyiova (2009).