A transnational comparison of lecturer self-efficacy

Abstract

Benchmarking within higher education is now relatively commonplace, as institutions increasingly compete directly with one another to improve the overall 'quality' of what they do and attempt to establish and better their position among peers as measured against sector standards. The benchmarking of confidence among academic staff in relation to the skills associated with teaching, research and service tasks, at least as far as these three core functions are traditionally conceived and understood, is, however, an underdeveloped and somewhat sensitive field. In this article, findings from just such a self-efficacy benchmark study involving colleagues in the Education and Arts disciplines of one large Australian university and one relatively small English university college are presented for the first time. Responses were obtained from 132 participating lecturers across these institutions using a recently introduced 70-item self-efficacy questionnaire founded in social cognitive theory. Despite their obvious differences in size and cultural context, outcomes both within and between institutions/disciplines were remarkably similar in their apparent 'strengths' and 'weaknesses', particularly so in Education, with reported greater self-efficacy for teaching than for research and service tasks, which together lagged some distance behind. Within the various subscales and individual items of the questionnaire, particular challenges were observed in many of the more fundamental skills attached to research. As institutions which recognise the varied contributions their academic staff make towards achieving their missions, albeit with an eye on 'performance', the diagnostic value of the self-efficacy questionnaire as a transnational benchmarking tool is considered and outcomes are discussed in terms of their individual and departmental implications, particularly with regard to informing strategic decisionmaking in resource allocation and continuing professional development.

The relationship between research self-efficacy, research disposition and publication output

“…pressure to publish). Support for this specific finding can be found in recent work conducted in Australia (Hemmings & Kay, 2010a, 2010b and the UK (Hemmings, Kay, Sharp, & Taylor, 2012;Sharp, Hemmings, Kay, & Callinan, 2012) where research self-efficacy, that is, an individual's confidence to successfully perform tasks when conducting research (Forester, Kahn, & HessonMcInnis, 2004), proved to be the most potent predictor, amongst several other factors, of research output. Again, these studies drew on quantitative data obtained from mail-out surveys.…”

“…To exemplify, there have been a number of studies investigating how gender has interacted with research self-efficacy. Zhao, McCormick, and Hoekman (2008) and Hemmings et al (2012), using survey methods, have identified lower levels of self-efficacy for research in female academics compared with their male counterparts. In terms of qualifications, researchers such as Bailey (1999), Hemmings et al (2012) and Quimbo and Sulabo (2014) have reported that those faculty members with doctoral qualifications tend to be more self-efficacious with respect to research and also invest greater time to research endeavours.…”

“…However, the primary catalyst is the recent quantitative work conducted by Kay (2010a, 2010b), Hemmings et al (2012) and Sharp et al (2012) suggesting that both research self-efficacy and research disposition appear to be key determinants of publication activity and subsequent career success. The latter construct, research disposition, could be viewed as a product of person and environment interaction.…”

Self-efficacy, procrastination, and burnout in post-secondary faculty: An international longitudinal analysis

“…Self-efficacy has long been found to be a strong predictor of performance outcomes across academic populations over and above the effects of prior achievement, including K-12, undergraduate, and graduate students (e.g., for reviews, see [22–23]) as well as K-12 teachers [24]. With respect to post-secondary faculty, international research over the past three decades has also explored this social-cognitive construct as reflective of faculty beliefs in their ability to teach (e.g., The Netherlands [25]; China [26]), conduct research (e.g., Turkey [27]; U.S. [28]), and engage in service (e.g., public outreach among U.S. faculty [29–30]), among other academic activities (e.g., administration and consulting, Australia [31]; computing, Nigeria [32]; see also [33]).…”

“…Similar to findings on teaching self-efficacy among K-12 educators [39], existing research has also shown faculty self-efficacy beliefs for research to be higher among senior relative to junior faculty members [31,36]. Prior studies have further examined faculty self-efficacy beliefs specific to a given discipline (e.g., STEM [30]; foreign language instruction [27,35]), with scattered findings showing faculty self-efficacy levels to be more problematic in specific disciplines relative to others (e.g., education [33]; social sciences [26]; accounting [31]).…”