Dimensions of language teachers' efficacy

Abstract

This descriptive correlational study aimed to determine language teachers' level of efficacy and the academic achievement of Grade 11 learners in Leon Municipality. The study participants were 17 purposively selected Senior High School Language teachers and 226 randomly selected students in the municipality of Leon enrolled in the second semester of the school year 2019-2020. The data-gathering instruments utilized were the adapted Teacher's Sense of Efficacy Scale by Tschannen-Moran & Hoy (2001) to determine the efficacy of the teacher-respondents and the teacher-made Achievement Test (in the subjects, Oral Communication, English for Academic and Professional Purposes, and Academic Reading and Writing). Appropriate statistical tools were employed to analyze the data. The significance level for all inferential tests was set at .05 alpha. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to process all numerical data. Findings showed that Senior High School language teachers were "efficacious," and students have an "average" level of academic achievement in language-related subjects in Senior High School. The study results reveal a weak positive correlation between teacher’s efficacy and learner’s academic achievement, but statistically not significant. Thus, it could be asserted that student's achievement is not only affected by teacher-factor but, most notably, by other factors. It is recommended that researchers may take into account other factors that may affect students’ academic achievement, and researchers may also use different sources of data to explore teacher's sense of efficacy in teaching language-related subjects in Senior High School.