Development and Validation of a Scale for Measuring Mathematics Teaching Self-Efficacy for Teachers in the Sultanate of Oman

Abstract

A scale for measuring self-efficacy for teaching mathematics in grades 5 to 10 was developed in this study for teachers in Oman. The participants were 328 mathematics teachers randomly selected from five educational governorates in the Sultanate of Oman. Factorial structure of the scale revealed three subscales: selfefficacy for understanding the mathematics content, self-efficacy for teaching the mathematics content, and general teaching self-efficacy. The three subscales showed strong internal consistency and sufficient evidence of construct validity and concurrent validity. The scale has potential uses for both educational and research purposes.Keywords: self-efficacy, teaching efficacy, mathematics efficacy, validity, reliability, scale development 144 Development and Validation of a Scale for Measuring …International Journal of Instruction, July 2017 • Vol.10, No.3 INTRODUCTIONSelf-efficacy is concerned with individuals' beliefs in their capabilities to conduct courses of action required to achieve given outcomes (Bandura, 2006, p. 1). It influences the choice of activities individuals make, the effort they invest, and how long they will persist in stressful situations (Pajares, 1997). A strong sense of efficacy can be motivating and persevering while a weak sense of efficacy can be exhausting and lead one to evade the difficult tasks (Pajares, 1997).Bandura (2006) has cautioned researchers attempting to measure self-efficacy in that there is no global measure of self-efficacy. An adequate analysis of the self-efficacy requires a detailed assessment of the level, generality, and strength of self-efficacy. The level of self-efficacy refers to variations across levels of task difficulty. The generality of the self-efficacy is concerned with the transfer of self-efficacy beliefs across activities. The strength of self-efficacy is measured by degrees of certainty that one can perform given tasks. These three dimensions of self-efficacy are measured using items that are task specific and vary in difficulty as well as degrees of confidence (Pajares, 1997;Zimmerman, 2000).In the context of the teaching profession, teaching efficacy beliefs refer to teachers' judgements in their capabilities to conduct specific teaching tasks required to influence student learning (Dellinger, Bobbett, Olivier, & Ellett, 2008). It has been documented that teacher self-efficacy beliefs are powerful predictors of a variety of student-and teacher-related outcomes (Aldhafri, 2016;Garvis, 2013). As such, the measurement of teacher self-efficacy has received notable attention in educational research. Numerous instruments have been created to measure the construct. However, the majority of them were not consistent with Bandura's theoretical framework for measuring self-efficacy in terms of task specificity, thereby causing misinterpretation about the nature of selfefficacy itself (Tschannen-Moran, Hoy, & Hoy, 1998). Hence, Bandura (1997) developed Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (TSS) consisting of 30 items divided into seven subscales: (a...

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