Teacher Self-Efficacy Theory

Introduction Teaching in high school is a profession considered to have great to have impact which is characterized by high levels of occupational pressure that results in burnout and emotional exhaustion. Middle school teachers undergo high pressures from the intense educational objectives, parents’ high expectations, and the responsibility to guide the students who are in puberty. Therefore, plenty of countries have been suffering from high teacher turnover rate, especially in the public schools with lower pay (Dai & Li, 2011). It is verified that the high teacher turnover has a negative impact on the performance and attitudes of students (Ronfeldt, Lankford, Leob, & Wyckoff, 2011). More seriously, burnout and emotional exhaustion directly

Soodak & Podell, 1996; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007; Wheatley, 2005). On the basis of social cognitive theory, teacher self-efficacy could be defined as the belief of individual teachers in their own abilities to “plan, organize and carry out” activities to achieve established education goals (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007). According to the induction of Høigaard, Giske, & Sundsli (2012), teachers with high self-efficacy tend to (a) hold a more open attitude to new ideas and experiment with new methods (Berman, McLaughlin, Bass, Pauly, & Zellman, 1977; Guskey, 1988; Stein &Wang, 1988); (b) present better capabilities in planning and organizing; (c) exhibit greater levels of teaching commitment and enthusiasm (Allinder, 1994); (d) be less strict to students who make mistakes and show more patience when working with students who are struggling (Ashton & Webb, 1986; Gibson & Dembo, 1984) and (e) experience a greater number of teacher flow experiences (Basom & Frase, 2004). Conversely, teachers with low self-efficacy are more likely to set rigid rules and negative sanctions in class to push students to study and are more pessimistic about the chance and ability of their students to make progress (Høigaard, Giske, & Sundsli, 2012). In addition, those low self-efficacy teachers have a

Therefore, the teachers, experiencing a great deal of stress are more likely to burnout with depressed mood, exhaustion, poor behavior, which may result in illness and early retirement (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2000; Vandenerghe & Huberman, 1999). Consequently, it negatively affects the students’ feelings, behaviors and performance (Zhang & Yu, 2007). There is no universally agreed explanation about the relationship between teacher self-efficacy and teacher burnout. One possible explanation is that low teacher self-efficacy may lead to the feelings of burnout (Bandura, 1997; Evers et al., 2002). The study of Hallum and Schwarzet (2008) on the relationships between self-efficacy, job stress, and burnout that focused on putative mediation proposed that the perception of the objective demands of daily teaching from those self-efficacious teachers being less threatening than those with low