Self-efficacy of Natural and Allied Science College Teachers in a State University

Self-efficacy studies on teachers have been mostly focused on the primary, secondary, preservice and graduate teaching assistant education. There is, however, a very limited study in the tertiary level especially amongst science teacher self-efficacy. Thus, this study explored the predictors of the performance of science teachers in a state university. The self-efficacy of the science teachers in the different domains of science teaching vis-a-vis their profiles were determined. Data were obtained from the responses of the Likert-type questionnaire which was adapted from the European Commission Competency of Science Teachers. The twenty-one respondents were tertiary teachers of natural and applied sciences in a state university. Regression analysis was applied to the data set in identifying the determinants of the performance of tertiary science teachers, evaluated at 0.05 level of significance. Findings showed that among the teacher profile variables (including gender, age, educational attainment, employment status, and years of teaching) only the type of program taught has correlation with the four domains of science teaching namely nature and concept of science, scientific inquiry, general skills in teaching and curriculum. Using the independent t test, it has been shown that there is no significant difference in the self-efficacy between natural and allied science teacher, as these teachers show very high self-efficacy. However, they should undergo reimmersion and seminars on the importance of the pedagogy of education as most college science teachers do not have formal background in teaching education.

Keywords – competency, science teaching domains, self-efficacy, college science teachers