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This study aimed at exploring the antecedents of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' self-efficacy (SE). That is, the main purpose was to deeply delve into the main variables and latent which lead to a high sense of SE among teachers of English as a foreign language.

A phenomenological inquiry was employed to explore the antecedents of language teachers from their eyes. In this study, the phenomenon is SE antecedents. The researchers employed this method to help identify the meaning behind the human experience as it is related to a phenomenon or notable collective occurrence. A semistructured interview checklist was developed, carefully worded, reviewed by five teacher educators known as experts in qualitative research methodology and teacher education and edited based on the experts' feedback

The findings showed that the antecedents of SE can be categorized into personal variables, educational variables and institutional variables. Personal variables include verbal intelligence, language proficiency and some other traits. The institutional variables include support from administration, support from colleagues, support from the community and quality of work life. The educational antecedents include preservice and in-service training courses. Preservice training courses included the following: the courses on general language skills, courses on teaching methods, practicum courses, etc.

This study was undertaken in a specific context and the participants are specific. Almost all studies on SE are quantitative, and this qualitative study explored the antecedents of teachers' SE from their own eyes. Some of the explored studies were not mentioned in any of the related studies.

While facing challenges and crises in the leadership of schools, school administrators need to have three vital characteristics: up-to-date knowledge, relevant skills, and sound dispositions. Self-referent dispositions that refer to thoughts and feelings about one's knowledge and skills play a key role in the success of professionals in carrying out day-to-day activities. One self-referent construct is self-efficacy, which pertains to a person's confidence in their knowledge and skills. This chapter discusses social cognitive theory, in general, and self-efficacy, in particular, to describe how the self-efficacy construct is relevant to school administrators’ ability to lead schools.

Drawing on Bandura's social cognitive theory, the present study examines the relationship between teacher self-efficacy and student misbehaviour, while exploring the moderating effects of teacher gender using gender schema theory.

The structural equation modelling examined the study model. Data were collected using self-report questionnaires from 464 teachers in secondary schools in Sri Lanka.

The results revealed that teachers' self-efficacy in overall teaching negatively correlated with student misbehaviour. Teacher gender had no moderating effects, implying an indistinct patriarchal influence on which the hypothesis was based.

The present study offers suggestions and practical recommendations in the areas of classroom management, school leadership, teacher education, and education administration on ways to enhance teachers' self-efficacy, particularly their self-efficacy in managing students' problematic behaviours. The findings of the study may also imply that the patriarchal dominance in Sri Lankan households may be waning.

This research is the first ever to apply gender schema theory to explore the moderating effects of gender in the self-efficacy–student misbehaviour relationship.

As demonstrated in the literature, teachers’ knowledge sharing, self-efficacy and creativity display certain levels of cause-and-effect and correlational connections from different perspectives. Nonetheless, few studies, if any, have been reported on the interplay of these three concepts in the context of the language classroom. As such, this study aims to test a structural model of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ knowledge sharing, self-efficacy and creativity and specifically to examine the hypothesis that creativity mediates the relationship between EFL teachers’ knowledge sharing and self-efficacy.

The participants were 384 EFL teachers from different language institutes across Iran. The EFL teachers were selected based on random stratified sampling method. To verify the research hypotheses, a quantitative correlational design was used in the present study. The quantitative data was collected using three questionnaires, and then descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Therefore, we used the EFL teachers’ creativity questionnaire developed by Khany and Boghayeri (2014), knowledge sharing behavior scale by Ramayah et al. (2014) and teachers’ self-efficacy questionnaire by Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001). To analyze the data, Pearson correlation and multiple regression were run.

The findings revealed the hypothesized model of relationships among the study variables. The results also confirmed the mediator role of creativity. The implications of the findings in relation to creativity, knowledge sharing and self-efficacy are discussed.

The bulk of research on teacher self-efficacy has concentrated fairly adequately on its relationship with factors such as teachers’ reflective practice, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, personality and student achievement. What seems to be rather missing in this line of research has to do with the exploration of the possible links among knowledge sharing, self-efficacy and creativity as interacting variables, especially in the context of Iran where teachers’ knowledge sharing is lower than expected. More importantly, no previous investigation has tapped into the mediating effect of creativity on the connection between English teachers’ knowledge sharing and self-efficacy.

Collective efficacy and teacher leadership, two constructs central to school reform, were examined in this quantitative study of three school districts. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between teacher perceptions of the extent of teacher leadership and the extent of collective efficacy. Research was guided by the following questions: Do teachers who perceive a strong sense of collective efficacy also perceive a greater extent of teacher leadership in their schools? Are there differences in perceptions of collective efficacy and the factors of teacher leadership, specifically, sharing expertise, shared leadership, supra-practitioner, and principal selection?

Data were collected utilizing two instruments, the Teacher Leadership Inventory (TLI) (Angelle and DeHart, 2010) and the Teacher Efficacy Belief Scale – Collective Form (Olivier, 2001). Descriptive statistics and ANOVA were run to examine mean differences by district in teacher collective efficacy and the extent of teacher leadership in the school (n=363). In addition, ANOVA were run to examine district differences in the four factors on the TLI. A one-way ANOVA contrasted the overall collective efficacy mean scores of Districts A, B, and C. Demographic data were also collected from participants.

Findings indicate a clear and strong relationship between collective efficacy and teacher leadership. District B was markedly stronger in teacher leadership and collective efficacy than the other two districts. The highest percentage of participants indicating they have a leadership role were from District B. Findings from this study also indicate that teachers perceive the informal aspects of teacher leadership as a greater indicator of collective efficacy. District B, which reported significantly higher collective efficacy than did District A or C, also reported a significantly lower extent of principal selected teacher leadership. Formal roles such as department heads and grade level chairs were not perceived as extensive indicators of teacher leadership as were teacher roles in collaboration or extra role behaviours.

This study took place in three small districts in a southeastern US state. Generalizability to larger school districts should be approached with caution. This study may be limited in that teacher leaders may have a greater tendency to complete a survey on teacher leadership than teachers who do not take on leadership roles.

This study provides support for developing shared leadership which can impact the collective beliefs of the faculty in a positive manner. Results from this study affirms those leaders who believe in the power of professional learning communities, shared decision making, and other indicators of teacher leadership. Success of teacher leaders depends, in large part, on the principal's philosophy of power sharing in the context in which they work. Teachers can be given the power to lead but they must also be willing to accept the roles this power brings.

While several studies have been conducted on collective efficacy in schools, most of these studies have been quantitative. Studies of teacher leadership have tended to focus on the formal roles of teacher leaders with a qualitative. Using quantitative methodology for collective efficacy and teacher leadership, this study approaches teacher leadership from an organizational perspective, examining the extent to which both informal and formal, or principal selected, teacher leadership exists across the school. The authors also argue that teacher leadership is a construct greater than administrative roles assigned to teachers but also includes informal leadership, primarily through their influence on organizational effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to review two school intervention projects aiming to promote students' self‐efficacy in Germany. Self‐efficacy, defined as people's “beliefs in their capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments”, is a core prevention criterion of mental health. It is positively connected to important facets of personality (e.g. motivational orientation, social competencies) as well as to health‐related situation‐specific behaviour (e.g. coping with stress, conflict solving).

Two intervention projects, “Self‐efficacious Schools – SESC” and “Fostering Self‐efficacy and Self‐Determination in class – FOSS”, made teachers familiar with the concept of self‐efficacy to enable them to develop and adapt intra‐curricular promotion measures of students' school self‐efficacy and social self‐efficacy.

Individualisation of task demands and performance feedback as well as a high transparency of teachers' demands and evaluation criteria are beneficial for students' school self‐efficacy. Social self‐efficacy is enhanced by establishing a positive class climate, where students support each other and teachers are sensitive to the individual needs of their students.

Both FOSS and SESC are multi‐component non‐randomised controlled studies. Thus, future research is needed focusing on the different measures separately using RCT‐designs.

The actual implementation of promoting strategies into school lessons is the decisive step of strengthening students' mental health at school. As a consequence, promotion measures have to be embedded into organizational structures which can motivate teachers to learn and implement innovation even under unfavourable conditions.

In contrast to extracurricular activities, there has been limited research on the implementation and evaluation of prevention activities continuously integrated into the mainstream school curriculum and normal lessons.

This study explored teachers' perceptions of a specific, collaborative peer observation structure, collegial visits, and collegial visits' connection to collective teacher efficacy (CTE). The research question was: how do teachers perceive collegial visits, particularly with respect to their influence on CTE?

Within this qualitative descriptive study, 13 K-12 educators from three northeastern USA schools (one urban high school and a suburban middle and elementary school) were interviewed individually and/or in a focus group.

Utilizing social cognitive theory as a framework for analysis, the authors found a theme of a shift from uninformed to informed perceptions of the collective. Results demonstrated that collegial visits foster positive CTE beliefs.

Since collegial visits were found to increase participants' CTE, a construct others have associated with increased student achievement, school leaders should consider implementing collegial visits as a professional learning structure in their schools after considering their specific context.

Though there has been recent scholarship connecting peer observations and CTE, there has been no research, to date, to examine the effect of the specific structure of collegial visits on CTE.

A significant research base has increasingly shown that one of the most important factors affecting student achievement in second language classrooms is the teacher. Consequently, over the recent decades, much attention has been paid to teacher-related variables in research. Nevertheless, few studies have dealt with the relationship between teachers' self-efficacy, metacognitive awareness and their professional development in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL). As such, the objective of this study is to test a path analysis model of the variables and specifically to examine the hypothesis that metacognitive awareness mediates the relationship between self-efficacy and professional development.

A quantitative correlational design was utilized to validate the research hypothesis. Then, data from 200 EFL teachers who were selected through available sampling was obtained using three questionnaires, namely metacognitive inventory by Cem Balcikanli, self-efficacy scale by Tschannen-Moran and Hoy and teachers' professional development inventory by Soodmand Afshar et al. The Pearson correlation coefficient of self-efficacy (r = 757, p < 0.000) revealed a significant positive relationship with metacognitive awareness, and the Pearson correlation coefficient of metacognitive awareness (r = 0.848, p < 0.000) showed a significant positive relationship with professional development.

The results showed the hypothetical model of the relationship among the research variables as well as verifying the mediator role of metacognitive awareness by multiple regression and path analysis. Then, the implications of metacognitive awareness, self-efficacy and professional development were put forward.

The majority of research on teacher professional development has focused appropriately on its relationship with components such as management training, teacher practice, reflective practice and academic achievement. In this line of research, the investigation of the potential links among self-efficacy, professional development and metacognitive awareness as interacting variables is scarce. More substantially, no prior exploration has been conducted concerning the mediating effect of metacognitive awareness in association with English teachers' self-efficacy and professional development.

This study aims to develop the scale for perception of training comprehensiveness and attempts to examine the influence of perception of training comprehensiveness on role behaviour: teachers’ efficacy as a mediator and job autonomy as a moderator.

Through the steps for a generation, refinement, purification and validation of the scale, the measures of training comprehensiveness are defined, followed by an exploratory factor analysis. In all, 961 primary school teachers and 323 principals participated in the study. Teachers rated their perception of training comprehensiveness, self-efficacy and job autonomy, while principals rated the role behaviour of teachers, to avoid self-reporting biases.

Regression analysis showed that training comprehensiveness affects teachers’ self-efficacy, higher teachers’ efficacy increases the teachers’ role behaviour, training comprehensiveness indirectly influences role behaviour and job autonomy moderated the channel of teachers’ efficacy and role behaviour. These results indicated that in primary schools specifically in rural areas of India, individual perception of training, skill development and human resource development practice induces teachers’ role behaviour via raising their efficacy to combat with adverse situations. Job autonomy on an independent basis moderates the positive relationship between self-efficacy and role behaviour.

This study also provides various practical and research-based implications.

The scale for training comprehensiveness has been developed, and its impact on behavioural attributes like efficacy and role behaviour is examined for a sample of teachers.

Extensive theoretical and empirical work has yielded abundant knowledge regarding teacher self-efficacy (TSE). Recent research has found significant correlations between TSE and students’ ratings, as an indicator for teaching effectiveness. The purpose of this paper is to test the relationship between TSE and students’ ratings of their school teacher (SRST) in the context of school level and teacher role.

Data were collected from 111 teachers and their 2,490 students attending junior- and senior-high schools. Teachers reported on their personal efficacy beliefs at the beginning of the school year, whereas students rated their teachers at the end of the year.

Teacher role and school level moderated the relationship between STE and SRST: the relationship between TSE and SRST is higher among homeroom classes than subject matter classes, and among junior high classes as compared to senior high classes.

The research is based on small number of classes, which precluded more sophisticated analyses. Future research should consider additional personal and/or contextual variables to better understand the association between teacher and students perceptions.

This study is a first exploration of the ways teachers perceive their ability to enhance student performance vis-à-vis their students’ views of their teaching functioning.