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1170 © 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE TEACHING AND RESEARCH CSC conceptualization, the teacher’s functioning within the school is comprised of two basic domains: (a) the classroom, where the teacher works with students, and (b) the school, where the teacher functions as a member of an organization. The importance of the Friedman and Kass (2002) model for the purpose of this study is that, besides classroom considerations, such as, teacher’s functioning as an educator and flexibility within the classroom and nurturing social relations among the students it contains an organizational efficacy component, which was not found in other definitions of teacher efficacy as proposed by other scholars. The organizational domain of the teacher functioning at school has a markable effect on the teacher as an employee (Cherniss, 1993). As an organizational person the teacher may possibly seek influence and active involvement in performing organization-related tasks (involvement in decision making, confidence in functioning in the organizational domain, and ascending the school hierarchy), as well as establishing positive relations with colleagues and members of the administration, assertiveness and social integration, and affording a sense of belonging and security. With reference to the educational setting, self-efficacy has been found to positively correlate with academic achievement. Research findings have established that students’ self-efficacy beliefs are correlated with other motivation constructs and with students’ academic performance and achievement (see, Ashton and Webb, 1986; Lent and Hackett, 1987). Several studies have also established that teachers with a strong sense of efficacy tend to exhibit greater levels of planning, organization, and enthusiasm. They persist when things do not go smoothly and are more resilient in the face of setbacks. They tend to be less critical with students who make errors and work longer with a student who is struggling (Ashton and Webb, 1986; Coladarchi, 1992, Gibson and Dembo, 1984; Tschanhen–Moran and Woolfolk 2001). A strong sense of teacher's self-efficacy promotes a firm commitment to the profession and collaborative relationships with colleagues and parents (Coladarci, 1992), contributing fruitfully to the promotion of a rich and stimulating learning environment. Ross (1994) reviewed 88 teacher efficacy studies in pre-college settings and identified potential links between teachers’ sense of efficacy and their behaviors. He reported that teachers with higher levels of efficacy are more likely to learn and use new approaches and strategies for teaching, provide special assistance to low achieving students, and persist in the face of student failure. Grau, Salanova and Peirò (2001) found that self-efficacy could moderate work- related stress. Professional selfefficacy was found to be negatively associated with burnout. Chwalisz, Altmaier and Russell (1992) examined the extent to which teachers’ causal attributions of their sense of job stress and perceived efficacy to manage stressors affected their style of coping, and the different types of burnout reactions. They found that perceived occupational inefficacy was an important mediator of burnout. III. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY As noted earlier, much research has been conducted on self-efficacy (e.g., Ross, 1994; Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998) and on stress (e.g., Boyle, Borg, Falzon, & Baglioni, 1995; Dick & Wagner, 2001), but little has been carried out or reported on the relationship between these two; however, those studies are mainly limited to the L1 environment. Since these two factors, teacher self efficacy and stress, are of current concern in all levels of education (Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998) and since increasing self efficacy and lowering stress contribute to teaching effectiveness (Pajares, 1992), it seems that some research should be carried out in EFL context to examine if and how these two factors are related. In summary, the present study seeks to investigate the relationship between EFL teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and their stress in private institute context. To this end, the present study seeks; first, to investigate the relationship between EFL teachers’ self-efficacy and stress, second, to investigate which dimension(s) of teachers self-efficacy can contribute to the prediction of stress among EFL teachers. A. Participants and Procedures IV. METHODOLOGY The participants in this study consisted of 108 EFL teachers (52 females and 56 males) aged between 20 and 47 years old (M= 28.43, SD= 5.12) with a range of between 1 and 19 years of teaching experience (M=6.52, SD=3.93). Sixty teachers held BA degree, forty four MA and four had PhD degree in one of these fields: English Language Teaching, English Translation and English Literature. The participants were chosen from 6 language institutes in Tehran. The study was carried out at the beginning of the summer semester, 2010. The participants took the questionnaires home, filled them in and submitted it to the researchers within a week. To receive reliable data, the researchers explained the purpose of the study to the participants, and assured them that their information would be confidential. B. Instruments Two questionnaires measuring EFL teachers self-efficacy and stress along with a subject fact form enquiring about teachers’ demographics, namely, age, gender and teaching experience served as the research tools in the present study. 1. Teacher Stress Inventory (TSI) Teacher stress was measured using the Teacher Stress Inventory (TSI). The TSI was developed by Fimian (1984) to measure teachers’ perception of stress as it relates to their occupation. The TSI includes 49 items on a 5 point Likert scale, and it covers 10 factors which are broken down into stress factors and stress manifestations. The five stress source
JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE TEACHING AND RESEARCH factors are Time Management, Work-Related Stressors, Professional Distress, Discipline and Motivation, and Professional Investment. The five stress manifestations factors are Emotional Manifestations, Fatigue Manifestations, Cardiovascular Manifestations, Gastronomic Manifestations, and Behavioral Manifestations. The reliability estimate of the scale for the present study was α = 0.91. 2. Self-efficacy Scale Reviewing the existing measures on teacher’s self-efficacy (such as, the Webb Efficacy Scale developed by Ashton, Olejnik, Crocker and McAuliffe (1982), including seven items; the teacher efficacy scale by Gibson and Dembo (1984), including 30 items on a 6 point Likert scale; Bandura’s teacher efficacy scale, 1997, comprising 30 items on a 9 point scale; Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale by Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy, 2001), the researchers decided to utilize Friedman and Kass’s (2002) Teacher Self Efficacy Scale. The rationale for utilizing this scale is twofold: First, it contains several aspects of efficacy beliefs, thus providing a higher resolution of this concept. Secondly, it contains an organizational aspect of teacher functioning, which was found to be an important factor in explaining stress (Cherniss, 1993). The Teachers Self efficacy Scale is based on Classroom and School Context (CSC) model of teacher selfefficacy, as introduced by Friedman and Kass (2002). The scale includes 33 items. As mentioned before, it measures teacher self efficacy in two domains of functioning, classroom context (sense of professional efficacy pertaining to teaching, educating and motivating students, as well as controlling inter-relations with students) and school context (involvement in school activities, participation in decision-making and influencing school organizational politics). The classroom context subscale consists of 19 items and the school context subscale includes 14 items. The response options for the items ranged from 1 (never) through 6 (always). In this study the reliability estimates for subscales were α = 0.89 for classroom context (classroom efficacy dimension) and α = 0.87 for school context (organizational efficacy dimension). © 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER V. RESULTS A. The Relationship between Teacher Self-efficacy and Stress In order to test the relationships between teachers’ self efficacy and stress, a Pearson Product-Moment Correlation analysis was run. The result indicated that there was significant negative correlation between self-efficacy and stress (r = - 0.47, p ˂ 0.01) (see Table 1). To clarify further, Scatter Plots also showed that the higher teachers’ self-efficacy, the lower their stress level (see Figure 1). TABLE 1: THE RESULTS OF CORRELATION BETWEEN TEACHERS STRESS, AGE AND YEARS OF TEACHING EXPERIENCE Stress Self-Efficacy - 0.47** **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). Figure 1: The Relationship between Self-Efficacy and Stress B. Contribution of the Two Dimensions of Teacher Self-efficacy to the Prediction of Stress To determine which dimension(s) of Self efficacy can predict stress in EFL teachers, a multiple regression analysis was run. In this analysis, R 2 =.22, F (2, 107) = 15.11 and p ˂ .01, indicating that 22 % of the variance in stress is explained by the combination of the independent variables, namely, Classroom efficacy and Organizational efficacy (see table 2). 1171
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