Because, teacher self-efficacy plays a central role in teaching competence and teacher effectiveness, addressing student teachers’ self-efficacy is of utmost importance. Although, self-efficacy is a well-studied construct, a comprehensive overview of factors enhancing students’ self-efficacy in higher education, was still missing. Our review study addressed this gap and provided the basis for this doctoral thesis. Moreover, although different measures for teacher self-efficacy have been formerly developed and validated, no self-efficacy instrument for measuring teacher competence efficacy of student teachers is available. Therefore we developed and validated a task and context specific teacher efficacy instrument.
Finally, in our dissertation, we used a multi-method approach by combining quantitative (study 3 in chapter 4) and qualitative (study 4 in chapter 5) research methods. In addition, to overcome common-method bias, we used an objective performance measure in addition to self-reports of student teacher self-efficacy and student perceptions of authenticity of assessment and provided feedback.
This dissertation does not only indicate answers to questions important for teacher education, but also offers different suggestions for future research.
The study-specific limitations were already discussed in the previous chapters.
In the following suggestions for future research we also take into account some more central limitations of the study already presented and associated with the choices made during this doctoral research project.
Regarding the student teacher efficacy instrument, we discern two research options. Firstly, this research was conducted within a specific setting for teacher
education referencing end first year student teachers. In order to confirm our constructive validity results, further research is needed within other settings for teacher education and among different year students. Secondly, based on the findings in this validation study we worded the so-called differentiation hypo-thesis, i.e. student teachers enter the programme with a global, undifferentiated, sense of teacher-efficacy, having teaching experiences a further differentiation takes place to a partly differentiated sense of teacher self-efficacy. We presume that the development of teacher competences matches the development of student teachers self-efficacy leading to a further differentiation of student teacher self-efficacy during their further competence development. To capture this research option we suggest further longitudinal research within other settings for teacher education referencing the same target group. More concretely, we suggest the collection of data among students at three different time points during their educational programme, namely: 1) at the beginning of the first year (the students having had no teaching experiences), 2) at the end of the first year (the students having had limited teaching experiences) and 3) at the end of second year (when they have had a moderate amount of teaching experiences). The comparison of the results of the three different time points can provide an answer to our differentiation hypothesis. Next to this, further investigation is advisable to gain insight in the diagnostic use of the student teacher efficacy subscales within the practice of competence-based teacher education.
One of the limitations of the results of this doctoral thesis has to do with the correlational nature of the research design of the third study. We have already discussed the causality and direction of relationship between perceptions of assessment and self-efficacy. Earlier we argued that although the measurement of the assessment characteristics and student teacher self-efficacy in the first part of the study was conducted simultaneously, there was a time difference in the study’s second part because the data of the competence evaluation outcome were collected at a later point in time, which supports our results. In addition to this, the combined results of studies three and four can speak in our advantage.
As mentioned above, we combined in study three and four quantitative with qualitative methods, to provide an answer on the main question of this research project. The results of this qualitative study not only lead to a fine-grained view on students’ assessment experiences but these findings also corroborated the findings of study three which provided stronger evidence for the found relationships. Nevertheless, the causality and direction of relationship between perceptions of assessment and self-efficacy must be interpreted with some caution and future research within teacher education, based on a more elaborate longitudinal study design, could confirm the proposed relationships between assessment perceptions and self-efficacy.
Additionally, in study 4, in which we investigated how in students’
experiences the authenticity aspect and the feedback aspect contribute to their sense of self-efficacy, delivered a fine-grained view of several types of self-efficacy information connected with the phases of portfolio competence assessment.
Due to the limitations of this qualitative study, the transferability of the results has to be further investigated. In order to enhance the transferability of these results we suggest replications of this qualitative study in other teacher training programmes. The results of these future studies can provide content for the construction of questionnaires regarding sources of self-efficacy to be used in quantitative research.
Finally, based on the results of our review study, we focused in this research project on two instructional factors relating to assessment. From the angle of assessment as well social cognitive theory, further research regarding the possible influence of other factors relating to assessment, on student self-efficacy could be worthwhile. Another result of our review study is, for example, goal setting, more concretely the learning goal property clarity appears to influence student self-efficacy. According to this finding it seems relevant to investigate goal setting as possible assessment factor influencing student self-efficacy. With reference to social-cognitive theory this research can also contribute to the knowledge of sources of self-efficacy, because it can provide additional insight into which instructional factors elicit which types of self-efficacy information. As the results of our review study relate to higher educational institutes in general, it seems logical that this last research suggestion brings forth fruitful yields as it takes place in several other domains of higher education next to teacher education.
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Scientific publications
Van Dinther, M., Dochy, F., & Segers, M. (2011). Factors affecting students’ self-efficacy in higher education. Educational Research Review, 6(2), 95-108.
Van Dinther, M., Dochy, F., Segers, M., & Braeken, J. (2013). The constructive validity and predictive validity of a self-efficacy measure for student teachers in competence-based education.
Studies in Educational Evaluation, 39, 169-179.
Van Dinther, M., Dochy, F., Segers, M., & Braeken, J. (2014). Student perceptions of assessment and student self-efficacy in competence-based education. Educational Studies, 40(3), 330-351.
International conferences
Van Dinther, M. (2009, November 18 – 20). Factors affecting students’ self-efficacy in education.
Paper presented at the 4th European Practice-Based and Practitioner Research Conference of the European Association for Practitioner Research on Improving Learning, Trier, Germany.
Van Dinther, M., & Braeken, J. (2011, May 19 - 20). Perceived competence for higher education:
Underlying structure and utility. Paper presented at the ASA Spring Methodology Conference, of the American Sociological Association, organised in Europe by the Department of Methodology and Statistics at Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Van Dinther, M. (2012, November 28 – 30). Self-efficacy of student teachers in competence-based education. Paper presented at the EAPRIL 2012 Conference of the European Association for Practitioner Research on Improving Learning, Jyväskylä, Finland.
Van Dinther, M. (2013, September, 18 - 20). Student perceptions of assessment and student self-efficacy in competence-based education. Paper presented at the Research Days of Katholieke Unversiteit Leuven and Maastricht University, organised by Centre for Research on Professional Learning & Development, Corporate Training and Lifelong Learning at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Wange, Belgium.