Abstract:

Based on a survey carried out in the Slovak Republic, approximately 40% of the pupils stated, that they do not like attending the school. This result is also confirmed by the international PISA testing, in which the school belonging of Slovak pupils was in fifth lowest place among the countries of the OECD. Therefore it is necessary to study school belonging of pupils and factors that can contribute to its higher level. The current study analyses the relation between teachers’ self-efficacy, their perceived success and pupils’ school belonging. 509 respondents were involved -31 teachers (aged 27-58, AM=40,77; SD=9,19) of the second grade of elementary school and 478 pupils from their classrooms (220 boys and 258 girls, aged 10-16, AM=12.52, SD=1,59). We used The Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy, 2001; Slovak adaptation by Gavora 2011, 2012) to measure teachers’ efficacy and the Perceived Success Scale (Sezgin, Erdogan, 2015) to measure the success of teachers. The school belonging of pupils was measured by Connectedness to School and Teachers (Waters, Cross, 2010). We expanded the original research intention adding pupils’ view on their teachers’ professional competencies using the same questionnaires. When teachers evaluated themselves, we found a significant correlation between self-efficacy and perceived success. Results did not show the significant relation between teachers’ self-efficacy, teachers’ perceived success and school belonging. When pupils evaluated teachers’ professional competencies, weak positive relations were shown between teachers’ self- efficacy, success and connectedness to school and strong positive relations were shown between teachers’ self- efficacy, success and connectedness to teachers. It is not only important to encourage teachers to develop their skills and belief in themselves. It is also necessary how teachers are perceived by their pupils.

Keywords:

Self-efficacy, Perceived success, Teacher, School connectedness.