CONTRIBUTION OF SCIENCE TEACHERS’ EFFICACY BELIEFS TO THEIR EMOTIONS

Teaching is a complex activity which involves many variables. Among these variables, teacher emotions are an integral part of instruction. Teachers experience a range of positive and negative emotions in the instruction process. While emotions like happiness, satisfaction, and enjoyment are positive emotions, frustration, anger, or boredom are perceived as negative. Teacher emotions influence their cognition and motivation as well as the quality of their instruction. Therefore, it is necessary to examine their emotions and the factors that may play role in their emotions regarding teaching. Teacher efficacy which is based on social cognitive theory, in this respect, might be related to teacher emotions. Teachers’ beliefs about their capability to promote student learning may account for their positive and negative emotions. For example, teachers with low self-efficacy may develop anxiety, which in turn negatively influence their teaching. As a result, the purpose of the present study was to investigate how well teacher efficacy predicts teacher emotions. This was a correlational study with 369 science teachers in different public middle schools. Data were collected using Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale. Two separate stepwise multiple linear analyses were performed taking teacher emotion variables (positive and negative emotions) as dependent variables and teacher efficacy variables (teacher efficacy in student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management) as predictor variables. For positive emotions, results indicated that the model explained 14.7% of variance. Teacher efficacy in student engagement (B = .163, p < .05) and instructional strategies (B = .251, p < .05) were significant predictors of teachers’ positive emotions. For negative emotions, only teacher efficacy in instructional strategies was significantly related to negative emotions (B = -.214, p < .05), accounting for 4.6% variance. These results mean that while teachers’ self-efficacy in student engagement and instructional strategies increases, their positive emotions increase. In addition, while their efficacy in instructional strategies increases, their negative emotions decrease. The findings of this study imply that teacher efficacy should be enhanced in order for teachers to experience more positive emotions in their instruction.