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Abstract

There has been an evolution in the teacher professional learning literature on what constitutes effective process. This evolution has seen a shift from a focus on the design elements to the theory of action that integrates and drives these disparate elements to create effective professional learning. This study argues that a focus on a theory of action can be enhanced when the construct of teacher collective efficacy is considered in relation to teacher professional learning. This study examined how participation in a collaborative professional learning model for primary science impacted on the teachers’ sense of their collective efficacy in a specific context in Australia. Data from interviews, professional learning sessions, written reflections and classroom observations of a group of 12 primary teachers were analysed using the construct of teacher collective efficacy. The evidence from this case study suggests that teacher collective efficacy employed as a conceptual framework may be a useful design heuristic that might enhance the quality of a teacher’s professional learning experience.

Keywords

Professional development workplace learning self efficacy collective efficacy primary science education

Introduction

There is a consensus in the literature that enhanced student outcomes are the gold standard in measuring the effectiveness of teacher professional learning (PL) (Dinham, 2013; Timperley, 2008). The focus of this study is on the process, rather than the outcome, of teacher PL where the literature has historically focused on the visible design elements that constitute effective process. In recent years, there has been a move towards a greater focus on the less visible theory of action that combines these disparate elements into an effective learning programme for teachers (Kennedy, 2016). This study examines how the psychological construct of teacher collective efficacy can be appropriated as a conceptual framework. This appropriation has the potential to make an important contribution to design theory in teacher PL.

This study is informed by the concept of triadic reciprocal causation from social cognition theory that describes the reciprocal interaction between a person and their environment through their cognition, affect and behaviours (Bandura, 1997). The value of this theory for this study lies in its recognition of the interaction of multiple factors on a teacher’s motivation, disposition and behaviours. One of the important factors that have been extensively researched is a teachers’ perceived sense of their self-efficacy.

Teacher self-efficacy (TSE) has been shown to have links to outcomes of interest for teachers such as reduced stress and intrinsic needs satisfaction (Klassen & Tze, 2014) as well as adaptive teaching (Schiefele & Schaffner, 2015). As a characteristic of motivation, rather than personality, it is also amenable to PL interventions (Klassen & Tze, 2014). TSE has been demonstrated to have strong links with many other self-reported teacher outcomes of interest, such as continued engagement with PL (Durksen et al., 2017), job satisfaction and lower levels of stress (Klassen & Tze, 2014) but there is a paucity of evidence that links TSE to external measures of effective teaching such as student achievement and observations of teacher performance (Klassen & Tze, 2014; Schiefele & Schaffner, 2015).

The TSE scale has also been adapted and extensively validated as an instrument to measure teachers’ perceived sense of their collective efficacy (Goddard et al., 2000, 2004). In recent years, teachers’ sense of their collective efficacy has been shown to have a positive relationship with the achievement of African-American students in mathematics both in individual performance and relative to their more advantaged counterparts (Goddard et al., 2017). As the authors argue in their findings, this is an important finding for education systems that have the twin goals of equity and excellence (Goddard et al., 2017). Importantly, for the focus of this study, their discussion also mentioned that ‘these goals were attained in schools where principals empowered teachers to collaborate, particularly through peer observation, and by a sustained focus on instructional improvement.’ (Goddard et al., 2017, p. 233).

Teachers’ sense of their collective efficacy as a team has profound impact on the learning outcomes of the students they teach. A recent study found that when teacher saw themselves ‘as a well functioning PLC (professional learning community), their level of perceived sense of collective efficacy may increase’ (Voelkel & Chrispeels, 2017, p. 518). In addition, a meta-analysis claimed an effect size of 1.57 on the results of students taught by teachers with a high level perceived sense of their collective efficacy (Hattie, 2015). This evidence suggests that a teacher’s perceived sense of their collective efficacy is a construct of interest when examining its possible antecedents in models of PL for teachers. This is especially the case when the motivational sources of teacher collective efficacy have been identified as mastery and vicarious experiences, social persuasion and the affective state of teachers (Maddux & Gosselin, 2012). These are constructs that can be easily identified within the design and theory of action of extant PL programmes.

The context for the study was a primary school located in a suburb in Sydney, Australia. Twelve primary school teachers voluntarily participated in a teacher PL programme in primary science led by the first author. Primary science is an area of the curriculum where it has been claimed that there is not a keen sense of collective efficacy among teachers (Nowicki et al., 2013).

The teacher PL in primary science, that is the focus of this paper, did have an impact on both teacher and student learning (Loughland & Nguyen, 2016). The focus of this paper is to examine what constitutes the collective efficacy of this model in the PL that occurred. The outcomes of the research will allow researchers and practitioners to use teacher collective efficacy as a conceptual framework as well as a construct in the provision of effective PL programmes for teachers.

Literature review

This review critically examines the relationship between the principles of effective PL and the motivational sources of teacher efficacy.

The four principles of effective teacher PL are an explicit theory of action (Kennedy, 2016), the integration of theory and practice (Timperley, 2008), the positive relationship between teacher self-evaluation and TSE (Timperley, 2008) and the power of collaboration (Harris & Jones, 2017). A full explication of the positive relationship between these principles and the antecedents of teacher collective efficacy has been made elsewhere within the practical context of a PL programme for emerging school leaders (Loughland & Ryan, 2020). This study sought to provide further evidence of this confluence within a PL programme for primary science teachers.

Teacher collective efficacy

The four principles of effective teacher PL were identified in the previous section of this paper. These principles are evident in the four motivational sources or antecedents of the validated construct of teacher collective efficacy. These four sources are mastery and vicarious experiences, social persuasion and teachers’ affective states (Maddux & Gosselin, 2012).

Mastery experiences are those that allow teachers to feel success. PL can provide these mastery experiences when there is an integration of theory and practice that is enabled by an explicit theory of action (Kennedy, 2016). This is the first confluence of the principles of effective teacher PL and the construct of teacher collective efficacy.

The second confluence can be seen in the intersection of vicarious experiences as a source of teacher collective efficacy and the importance of collaboration in teacher PL. Vicarious experiences are those whereby teachers learn from each other. This confluence is supported by many scholars (e.g. Capalbo, 2002; Darling-Hammond, 2017; Goddard et al., 2007) who have all argued for the benefits of PL models that are embedded in teacher reflection and collaboration.

Social persuasion involves a shared sense of purpose and vision. There is a confluence between this source of teacher collective efficacy and the role a coherent theory of action can play to bring teachers together with a compelling vision and a feasible, collaborative plan to achieve it.

Affective states as a motivational source of teacher collective efficacy correspond to the principle of PL that links teacher self-evaluation to an enhanced sense of their self-efficacy. Positive feelings result from teachers’ evaluation that their students are making progress due to their professional learning endeavours (Timperley, 2008).

There is a strong theoretical association between the principles of effective teacher professional learning and the validated construct of teacher collective efficacy as an outcome of interest. Research is required that demonstrates that this theoretical association can be translated into practical implementation, a ‘theory of action’, if you will. The construct of teacher collective efficacy needs to be moved out of its measurement paradigm into a concept malleable enough for the purposes of professional learning. This challenge is taken up in this study.

The theoretical challenge of situating a psychological construct such as collective efficacy into the complex environment of teacher professional learning is emblematic of what is often required but poorly understood in educational research. In common with the Frankfurt school of sociology, it is sometimes productive to look beyond the assumptions of one’s own home discipline in order to find a theoretical frame with enough explanatory power to explain complex social interactions (Abromeit, 2013). This theoretical pluralism can add the rigour of construct validation that is sometimes missing in small-scale case study research as well as avoid the over-generalisation of research models generated from self-report data (Klassen & Tze, 2014). Research on teacher professional learning should be able to draw upon the best constructs, concepts and theories from psychology, sociology and philosophy in order to explain but just as importantly to construct frameworks that can guide the design of future practice endeavours. Teacher collective efficacy is one such validated construct that is worth exploring for its potential as a conceptual framework for teacher professional learning.

Research methodology

This was a case study of the implementation of a professional learning programme in primary science. The objective of the research was to learn more about professional learning that promoted teacher collective efficacy rather than build theory. In this case, we move beyond the outcomes of the PL model implemented (Loughland & Nguyen, 2016) to an examination of the aspects of these PL experiences that exemplify the four motivational sources of the construct of teacher collective efficacy.

The objective of this research is synonymous with a theoretical conception of case study research that regards a small sample as an opportunity to learn more about the research problematic (Flyvbjerg, 2006). In this conception, the small sample size is viewed as a strength rather than a deficit as the study seeks to generate practice-based evidence (Bryk et al., 2015).

Practice-based evidence is an alternative to evidence-based practice that recognises the influence of culture on educational interventions whether they are proven by science or not. Whereas scalability through generalisability is the goal of evidence-based practice, the evidence in teacher professional learning is often equally weighted to the process as well as the outcomes of the intervention itself. Rich qualitative descriptions of the process create practice-based evidence that allows others to understand what is required in the act of implementation (Albers & Pattuwage, 2017).

Method

The first author developed a model of professional learning for primary teachers at Harbourview Primary School (a pseudonym) based on the key features of effective professional learning explicated in this paper. The PL programme consisted of collaborative planning, in-the-action teacher mentoring and critical collaborative reflective discussion.

Collaborative planning

Five one-hour collaborative planning sessions were held to provide opportunities for teachers to plan together to develop primary science programmes that embodied the question–predict–observe–explain–communicate scientific method. The focus was on the first author and school professional learning coordinator acting as expert advisors to the participating teachers to co-plan programmes that explicitly identified the scientific method skills alongside the knowledge outcomes.

In-the-action teacher mentoring

In-the-action teacher mentoring by the school coordinator and first author followed the collaborative planning sessions. In-the-action mentoring is the name given to teacher mentoring that happens within a classroom lesson as opposed to the mentoring that occurs outside the action of the classroom (Schwille, 2008). Each of the 12 teacher participants experienced the in-the-action mentoring at least once. It provided rich data for the ensuing critical reflective discussions as the mentor could affirm and probe the teacher’s critical reflection using their first-hand knowledge of the lesson.

Critical collaborative reflective discussion

These whole-group discussions were a key feature of the PL programme that enhanced the learning of the participant teachers through critical reflection on the lesson implemented by one of their peers. The discussions were led by the teachers who had been observed in the previous week and artefacts such as student work samples and recollections of critical learning events were employed.

Data analysis

The data for this study were teacher planning documents, video-recorded lessons, audio-recorded teacher professional learning sessions and interviews with individual teachers. In an attempt to address possible bias, the interviews were conducted by the second author, without the presence of the first author (who had participated in the professional learning exercises). The interviews took place three months after the teachers completed the PL programme. The intention of this delay was to give them further time to reflect on the impact of the programme on their teaching practice. The teacher professional learning sessions and individual interviews were transcribed and used as the main source of data for this paper.

These data were collated in a NVIVO project shared by the authors. The authors undertook a thorough process of data analysis that involved both thematic and theoretical coding. The thematic coding occurred first as both authors identified themes in the data. The authors moderated their coding through discussion of the emergent themes. A second phrase theoretical coding was then conducted. The theory used in this phase of coding was the motivational sources of collective efficacy identified in the literature – mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, social persuasion and affective states (Maddux & Gosselin, 2012). The authors coded all of the data according to this conceptual framework. The extract/instant which showed the evidence of these motivational sources for teacher collective efficacy was identified.

Ethics approval

Ethics approval was sought and gained from the university ethics committee as well as from the division of research in the local state Department of Education. All of the teachers involved in the professional learning programme provided their informed consent to participate in the research study. Names used when referring to teachers are pseudonyms.

Results

The results of the study are reported here in four sections that represent each of the motivational sources for teacher collective efficacy. There are more data reported in the first two sections as more data were coded as mastery and vicarious experiences than social persuasion and affective states.

Mastery experiences

It is easy to conceptualise mastery experience as being a source of collective teacher efficacy. Success breeds success for teachers as much as it does for their students. The team of teachers involved in this study were no different as they discussed their successes with their colleagues:

Paul: Yeah. But what I noticed that was good today was like, students such as, like, Rory knew exactly, ‘cos we had that previous lesson when you push a ball and the motion of the marble and stuff like that, he carried across straight away and he knew exactly and he was breaking apart the force, you know how he was talking about …

Terry: Pushing and pulling

Paul: yeah, so that was awesome, hearing that and knowing he, obviously he’s taken something from it … (excerpt from professional learning session)

The teachers developed a sense of their mastery in science teaching when they witnessed improvement in student learning that they attributed to their professional learning:

With action learning you’re learning, you’re taking it back to classroom, and that’s what I really like, it’s so practical and it just helps you improve. (Jean, teacher interview)

The teachers invested a lot of time and effort in detailed lesson plans, which they believed could lead to a productive lesson and a focused teacher:

Tom commented that a demonstration lesson makes you write a detailed lesson plan that leads to a productive lesson and a focused teacher. (research memo, first author)

The teachers’ sense of efficacy in teaching primary science was bolstered by the detailed lesson plans they had developed in the collaborative planning sessions. These detailed plans gave them a mastery of the skills and concepts their students needed to learn in these science lessons.

The extended discourse on planning scientific investigations observed in one lesson was also an indication of a mastery of integrating the scientific method into their pedagogy:

In Tom’s lesson on Berocca there is a sustained period of time spent on the planning of the investigation. There was definition of variables, development of a question and outcome measures nominated. Is this extended discourse on method an indication of a sophisticated understanding of the method (and syllabus) in terms of professional learning? (research memo, first author).

In summary, the evidence from this study suggests that mastery experiences are a source of a teachers’ sense of collective efficacy when engaged in teacher professional learning.

Vicarious experiences

Vicarious experiences in the form of collaborative planning, in-the-action mentoring and reflective discussions as a whole group promoted an enhanced sense of collective efficacy among the teachers in this professional learning team. Collaborative planning as a team enabled teachers to learn from each other. In the first excerpt from a collaborative planning session, vicarious learning is shown with the sharing of a planning template:

Paul: Oh this is the planning stage for the next one, yeah cool.

Ariel: That’s a really good template

Mary: That’s really good, I like that, how it explicitly talks about, we’d probably write that and then put in brackets ‘variables’ and use the words and … you know what I mean? (Collaborative planning discussion, term 3, week 2)

The next excerpt demonstrates collaborative learning at the more granular level of the lesson introduction:

Jean: I mean, but shouldn’t we talk about those ones first? We just brainstormed …

Ariel: I don’t think we need this do we?

Jean: Uh, hang on, I do like it, but I just think we should …

Ariel: But for the purpose of this, if we want to get to another investigation, adding in an investigation, we don’t want to spend too much time on this.

Jean: Ok it was just a quick brainstorm at the beginning? Alright we’ll talk about that, the irreversibility, when we get to the popcorn. (Professional learning discussion, term 3, week 1)

In-the-action mentoring (Schwille, 2008) that occurs literally within the action taking place during a lesson is an effective, but rarely used, source of vicarious learning for teachers. The following research memos that explicate this form of vicarious learning were made by the first author in NVIVO as they reviewed the classroom video:

In what is a very good explanation session on changes of state, a student in year one mentions their idea that apples melt. The ensuing discussion is a critical indicator of the teacher’s confidence in this area. To her credit, the less experienced teacher is keen to let the students speak and go with their ideas. It’s just that she is not sure what to do when these ideas come from left field! (Author 1, research memo)

Left-of-field questions from Year one students are not unusual but they can be disconcerting when you are teaching a concept for the first time. This is when mentoring within the lesson becomes a critical intervention as well as a wonderful opportunity for professional learning:

The more experienced teacher then redirects the conversation by focusing on what change occurs with all the listed items on the board. This is evidence that the presence of a teacher coach in the room may be an effective strategy for professional learning. This video excerpt clearly shows the experienced teacher using questions to elicit students’ current understanding of the relationship between heat and melting. (Author 1, research memo)

The reflective discussions on what eventuated when the teachers taught the lessons were also a fruitful source of vicarious learning. This was the case when there was an opportunity for teachers to hear about a lesson that they were yet to teach:

Good knowing that you have support, resources sharing and refining of lessons by listening to other experiences with lessons you are going to teach (teacher written reflection, Term 2)

Primary schools in NSW, Australia, are divided into four stages of learning as defined by their curriculum outcomes. Early stage one is Kindergarten, that is, the first year of formal schooling for five-year olds. This is followed by stage one (Years 1 and 2), stage two (comprised of Years 3 and 4) and stage three (encompasses Years 5 and 6). Vicarious learning was enhanced by the multi-stage composition of this professional learning team:

Yeah, because different teachers do different activities, and some of them are stage three, some of them are stage one, and the questions that they pose to the students are quite different because the level of understanding of the students is so different, so it’s just helpful just to sit there and listen to what they say. (Cherie, teacher interview)

It is also easy to see the contribution of multi-stage vicarious learning to an enhanced sense of teacher collective efficacy in the following excerpt:

So listening and speaking with them was really interesting, to see how much growth there is between stage one and stage three, and looking at concepts which, when I teach these students in year five now I’ll know where they’re coming from and where their understandings are. So it was nice to see the growth. (Tom, teacher interview)

In summary, the evidence from this study suggests that vicarious learning is a motivational source of teacher collective efficacy.

Social persuasion

There was less evidence of social persuasion as a motivational source of collective efficacy in this study. The only excerpt that could be coded in this area was the following from a teacher written reflection:

Good way to encourage me to take the first step of actually doing science experiments in my classroom. (teacher written reflection)

This is limited but good evidence that social persuasion might play a role in the development of a sense of collective teacher efficacy.

Affective state

There was limited evidence of teacher affective states being a source of collective efficacy in this study. In fact, the only data that were coded were counterfactual to this claim. These excerpts are provided here to demonstrate that our analysis process was rigorous enough to locate disconfirming evidence, participants gave truthful responses and to highlight an important area of teacher professional learning that may sometimes be overlooked. The first excerpt reveals the discomfort Jean felt when she was asked to participate in collaborative planning:

… but not to start from scratch, because I personally can’t think when I haven’t sat down and really gone over it I can’t think when I’m in a group of people, it just doesn’t do it for me. (Jean, teacher interview)

Jean’s negative feelings of group work are not dissimilar to some students who are compelled to do collaborative learning. Jean was also candid in how she felt about some of the reflective discussions:

It’s hard, and I know this sounds dreadful, but if I’m being honest I just think that when somebody is doing something completely different from me I sometimes switch off a bit whereas if it’s really relevant to me I’m like “Oh yeah, that happened in my classroom.” (Jean, teacher interview)

This evidence from one participant can only be regarded as limited evidence that teachers’ affective states can sometimes work against an enhanced sense of collective efficacy in a professional learning team. It does suggest, however, that the differentiation of learning activities according to students’ abilities and interests that is advocated for school students might equally apply to their teachers engaged in their own learning.

Discussion

This study examined what constitutes teacher collective efficacy in a model of teacher professional learning that had already been reported in the literature as having a clear focus on the instructional core of classroom learning in primary science (Loughland & Nguyen, 2016). This examination highlighted the value of direct and vicarious learning experiences in teacher professional learning. In contrast, social persuasion and teacher affective states were less evident as sources of teacher collective efficacy in this study but remain as two areas worthy of focus in the future design and research of teacher professional learning.

There was evidence from this study of the importance of mastery experiences as a source of collective teacher efficacy. This evidence emphasises the importance of teacher experiencing success as an integral outcome of their professional learning. This success is more likely to occur when teachers are active participants in their own learning rather than just participants in professional development sessions arranged for them (Durksen et al., 2017). Mastery in teacher learning also directly addresses two of the four principles of effective teacher professional learning, in that it requires the integration of theory and practice (Timperley, 2008) as well as promoting a sense of efficacy in teachers when they witness their own students’ mastery learning (Timperley, 2008).

Vicarious experiences in the form of collaborative planning, in-the-action mentoring and reflective discussions as a whole group promoted an enhanced sense of collective efficacy among the teachers in the professional learning team in this study. The collaborative nature of these learning activities directly addresses teacher collaboration (Harris & Jones, 2017), one of the four principles of effective teacher professional learning outlined in this paper. In common with the distinction made between teacher professional development and teacher professional learning in the previous paragraph, it is difficult to image this collaboration occurring in the type of one-day stand and deliver professional development sessions that are thankfully becoming less common place in contemporary education systems.

Little evidence of social persuasion and counterevidence of teacher affective states was found in this study. This finding should be regarded with due scepticism because of the paucity of the data that were coded to these two categories in the analysis. However, there were elements of the influence of these two categories in the negotiation that occurred on the specific focus of the professional learning programme. The specific focus of the programme was refined by the teachers themselves to the question–predict–observe–explain–communicate scientific method rather the first author’s original goal of working at the more abstract level of pedagogical theory (Loughland & Nguyen, 2016). This agency of teachers to define their own learning is a key consideration in the design of teacher professional learning. This is brought into sharp focus when the lens of teacher collective efficacy is employed as an analytical framework for teacher professional learning because of the key role that social persuasion and teachers’ affective states play in its development. It seems feasible to suggest that teacher agency in their own learning would impact positively on their affective state as well as be a factor in their persuasion of other teachers that this model of professional learning is worthwhile. Indeed, it is argued that agency is the key criterion that separates teacher professional learning from teacher professional development where teachers are passive subjects (Durksen et al., 2017).

Social persuasion and teacher affective states demand further consideration given the relationship of teachers’ motivation to the effectiveness of teacher professional learning (Kennedy, 2016). Motivation is the thrill that is part of the thrill–skill–will model of learning (Hattie & Donoghue, 2016). This model of learning was originally conceptualised for school students, but it is also might be applied for teachers’ professional learning when the goal is to enhance their sense of collective efficacy. This potential is evident when the four sources of collective efficacy are compared to the three categories of thrill, skill and will in Hattie and Donoghue’s model (2016).

The thrill of teacher’s motivation is an obvious but often overlooked factor in the success of teacher professional learning models. Compliance models may not consider teachers’ motivation to be involved in professional learning programmes where they are conscripts rather than volunteers (Kennedy, 2016). This is where teacher collective efficacy with its emphasis on mastery experiences can enhance the design of teacher professional learning. Mastery goals and their achievement enhance teachers’ future motivation (Hattie & Donoghue, 2016) leading to an enhanced sense of teacher collective efficacy in professional learning teams.

The skill refers to a teacher’s previous achievement (Hattie & Donoghue, 2016). In this study, the teachers had varying levels of ability and confidence. This influenced our collective decision to focus on the specific teaching method of question–predict–observe–explain–communicate after the first author had originally proposed that the professional learning be organised around a pedagogical theory (Loughland & Nguyen, 2016). The variance of teachers’ current levels of confidence meant that the vicarious learning enabled by the collaborative planning, in-the-action mentoring and reflective discussion enhanced teachers’ collective efficacy in this study.

The will is the teachers’ dispositions towards learning (Hattie & Donoghue, 2016). The collaborative agentive design of professional learning in this study made these teachers predisposed to learn new methods of teaching primary science. The collaborative planning and in-the-action mentoring gave the teachers the necessary resilience to take the necessary pedagogical risks in the classroom that were required. The reflective discussion affirmed their risk-taking and enhanced their disposition towards further learning in this area. Vicarious learning might be regarded as a source of both teacher collective efficacy and positive dispositions towards teacher learning. Positive dispositions towards their own professional learning are also akin to how teachers’ feel about their work or their affective state of mind, which is another source of teacher collective efficacy.

In summary, there are strong links between the rigorous thrill–skill–will model of learning and a re-conceptualised teacher professional learning model based on the validated construct of teacher collective efficacy. This conceptual model requires further research to be undertaken into its effective implementation in educational settings.

Areas for further research

The areas for further research suggested by the evidence of this study include cost-benefit analyses and a closer examination of social persuasion and teacher affective states, the sources that were less obvious in this study.

The evidence from this case study suggests that teacher collective efficacy might be used as a proxy measure for the effectiveness of teacher professional learning. Proxy measures for effectiveness in teacher professional learning are needed as achieving the gold standard of improved student performance a year after the intervention (Kennedy, 2016) is time consuming and expensive. A proxy measure would not only make the validation of teacher professional learning models more cost-effective but also draw attention to the processes of teacher learning as well as its outcomes.

Research on the thrill, skill and will of teacher professional learning would bring into focus social persuasion and teacher affective states, the two other sources of teacher collective efficacy that were not prominent in this study. This focus would permit teachers to be seen as learners rather than passive subjects of compliance models of teacher professional learning.

Limitations of this study

The findings of this case study are not generalisable to the broader population. However, the methodological process of working from validated psychological constructs to conceptual frameworks for the design of teacher professional learning might be replicated in further research and practice in this area.

Another limitation of this study is that the authors may have coded what is familiar to them in mastery and vicarious experiences rather than novel categories such as social persuasion and teacher affective states. Future research that examines teacher collective efficacy may be more attuned to these codes that are no longer novel.

Conclusion

This case study of teacher professional learning through the conceptual framework of teacher collective efficacy required an epistemological remodelling of teacher collective efficacy as a measurement construct to a conceptual framework that can be used to design and analyse effective teacher professional learning. This remodelling process demonstrated that there was a confluence between this conceptualisation of teacher collective efficacy and the literature on effective teacher professional learning.

The empirical study of the reconceptualisation of teacher collective efficacy produced mixed evidence. Two sources of teacher collective efficacy in mastery and vicarious experiences could be easily identified in the case study. However, the other two sources in social persuasion and teacher affective states were less obvious in this case study. This was posited as a function of the novelty of these categories for the researchers, but it might also indicate an area of teacher professional learning design worthy of more attention in research and practice. At the very least, a focus on teachers’ feelings and the role the social environment has on effective teacher professional learning would make the whole enterprise resemble agentive learning rather than passive acquiescence to a compliance model of professional development.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Tony Loughland

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Using teacher collective efficacy as a conceptual framework for teacher professional learning – A case study