Administrative Assignment of Teachers in Restructuring Secondary Schools: The Effect of Out-of-Field Course Responsibility on Teacher Efficacy

Previous studies have treated teacher efficacy as a unitary trait without considering how teachersʹ expectations of their ability to produce student learning varies within teaching assignments. In this study, teachers in nine restructuring secondary schools in one district estimated their ability to perform common teaching tasks in four of the courses they expected to teach in the coming school year. Although the portion of the variance explained was small, the study found that teacher efficacy was lower for courses outside the teacherʹs subject. The effects of teaching outside oneʹs area were greater than the effects of track and grade. This study also found that teacher efficacy was influenced by teacher leadership roles. Teachers who were expected to promote student learning across subjects had lower teacher efficacy than teachers in traditional positions of added responsibility (department heads) and teachers who were not in leadership positions.