IMPACTOS, CONCLUSIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES

The significant difference between overall collective efficacy beliefs and overall teacher efficacy beliefs aligns with the results from Goddard and Goddard’s (2001) study in elementary schools. That is, in my study and Goddard and Goddard’s study, there was a positive and reciprocal relationship between teacher and collective efficacy. However, in Goddard and Goddard’s study, teacher efficacy was slightly greater than collective efficacy, whereas in my study, collective efficacy beliefs were stronger. The teaming structures that allow for regular collaboration in the middle schools may contribute to collective efficacy becoming stronger than individual teacher efficacy. Bandura (1993) emphasized that because desired outcomes in an organization are reached gradually, the evaluation of progress has a profound effect on self-appraisal and this can alter the time it takes to attain results. Again, the mastery experiences based on achieved assessment outcomes, along with the support and school wide unity focused on high expectations for students, are likely catalysts for stronger collective efficacy. This suggests that creating structures that promote collaboration can help to increase collective efficacy if principals also are skilled in facilitating the interpretation of achievement results with teachers so that the staff sees specific indicators of progress that can be used to determine future actions.

165

Goddard and Goddard (2001) found that collective efficacy predicted teacher efficacy. This was affirmed in this study. Bandura (1997) concluded that teachers do not function in isolation but are influenced by other teachers because social cognitive theory postulated that self-efficacy was shaped by the social dynamic of the

organization. The level of the collective efficacy perceptions in the schools in this study, and the finding that they are stronger than individual teachers’ beliefs, suggest that a sense of overall effectiveness can evolve in schools where isolation is replaced with structures and dynamics that advance teachers’ interest and skills in collaborating to improve student learning. Teachers’ responses almost unanimously reflected a positive view about the unified work of their schools and the role the principals played in facilitating collaboration and providing helpful support and feedback. Leadership that not only brings people together but that also allows the staff to develop a coherent and purposeful means of using results as the starting point for future actions, and that creates a school culture that has a normative effect on each teacher, is necessary for developing collective efficacy that in turn may increase teacher efficacy. This means that principals must be skilled at recognizing organizational dynamics and using structures and resources to focus teachers’ work on instructional practices that are associated with improved outcomes, at working collaboratively with a staff to solve problems so there is a real sense of collective effectiveness, and at aligning professional learning with both teachers’ daily work with students and with goals that are fixed on increasing achievement.

Results suggest that stronger collective efficacy is a starting point, an indicator that a staff is capable of raising teachers’ individual efficacy. In accordance with Goddard’s

166

(2001) contention that collective efficacy brings normative press to a school, the higher levels of overall collective efficacy compared to overall teacher efficacy in seven of the ten schools in the study indicate that the cultures in these schools press teachers to persist with strategies and efforts that promote improved achievement. Although all teachers may not yet believe that they can individually bring about these results, this study confirmed that collective efficacy is an important factor in creating a culture for high academic achievement. Goddard (2001) noted that when collective efficacy is greater, the normative press increases. Because of the strong link between academic achievement and teacher efficacy, my study suggested that developing collective efficacy in a school can lead to increasing individual teacher efficacy, which strengthens teachers’ persistence and efforts in working effectively with students. Again, strong collective efficacy begins with principals whose leadership skills and approaches are oriented towards developing teachers’ capacities for focused

collaboration centered on student learning. Cultivating and improving the quality of collaboration differs from promoting the collegiality that is generally acknowledged as desirable in an organization. In order to guide collaboration that contributes to

collective efficacy, principals need to model thinking through and using interpretations of student performance data with teachers and engage them in determining actions that emerge from common understandings of practices that align with improved

achievement.

Previous studies noted that high levels of collective efficacy can lessen the decrease in efficacy that individual teachers experience in their first years of teaching (Chester & Beaudin, 1996; Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998) and offset the uncertainty faced by

167

teachers who are relatively new to the profession or to a school (Goddard & Goddard, 2001). In this study, 17% of the participants had taught for three years or less. Teachers in Oregon have probationary status for three years. The percentage of probationary teachers in the participating schools ranged from 0 to 31%. The mean difference between schools’ overall collective efficacy and teachers’ individual efficacy beliefs was 2.90, which represented less than 15% of the incremental difference

between respondents’ viewing that they have quite a bit of an effect and a great deal of an effect on students’ academic and behavioral success. It is possible that the

difference between collective efficacy and teacher efficacy was not that great because of the power collective efficacy has to positively influence individual teacher efficacy and to raise the efficacy of newer teachers. Similarly, 51% of the participating teachers had taught in the schools in the study for three years or less and the number of newer teachers in the schools ranged from 8% to 81%. This suggests that having structures within a school that not only encourage but that actively engage teachers in

collaboration centered on student learning and achievement in order to develop collective efficacy can gradually strengthen teacher efficacy. Collective efficacy is normative and this allows it to shape the school culture by reinforcing practices that promote achievement and beliefs in teachers’ effectiveness. Teachers who are new to a school where there is robust collective efficacy will experience the professional

dynamics of working with these norms in place, which is likely to increase their individual teaching efficacy. Furthermore, it seems leadership that is attentive to the aspects of school culture could strengthen collective efficacy. Shared decision making about academic and instructional priorities, purposeful collaboration that leads to goal

168

setting, ongoing feedback and support that is focused on student learning appears to be essential, at both the school and district levels.

Question 3: Findings and Interpretation about the Difference between Collective