Sources of Teacher Efficacy Related Attributes Alongside Bandura’s Perspectives

Abstract

This article investigates how the secondary education expansion policy shapes the construction of teacher efficacy. Bandura’s self-efficacy theory underlies this article, and qualitative case study was the main approach. Around 12 and 16 teachers, respectively, participated in individual and group interviews. Findings indicate that the inadequate implementation of the policy affected the sources of teacher efficacy. The study identified that social persuasion is one of the most social self-efficacy contributors. It also pointed out factors which support a view of mastery experience as the most powerful source of self-efficacy, and the causes of teachers’ negative emotional states beyond school context.

Introduction

Teacher efficacy as a socio-cognitive construct grew out of the research and seminal work of Bandura (1977). Bandura defines teacher efficacy as a cognitive process in which teachers construct beliefs about their proficiency to perform their duties at a certain degree of attainment. This cognitive processing is shaped by contextual and cultural factors (Bandura, 1986; Dimopoulou, 2014). Teachers’ beliefs determine how resilient they are in dealing with failures (Zee & Koomen, 2016), and how they cope with stress or depression when facing challenges in their teaching practices (Phan & Locke, 2015). Therefore, teachers with high degree of self-efficacy are enthusiastic to teach (Bandura, 1995; Locke & Johnston, 2016), support students who struggle in their learning (Hoy, 2000; Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998), and are more likely to stay longer in the teaching profession (Canrinus, &, Beijaard, Buitink, & Hofman, 2012; Khurshid et al., 2012) as compared to low self-efficacy colleagues. Raath and Hay (2016), for example, explored how South African teachers’ sense of efficacy related to their confidence in their ability to integrate climate changes in their teaching. It was found that teachers with high degree of self-efficacy were more enthusiastic to participate in climate change related projects than their low self-efficacy colleagues.

Bandura (1977) maintains that a teacher may develop a low or high self-efficacy to perform a particular task from four major sources. These include mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, social persuasion, and physiological and emotional arousal. Mastery experience is considered to be the first and most powerful source of self-efficacy information (Bandura, 1986; Elliott et al., 2016; Renner & Pratt, 2017). While success enhances teachers’ beliefs that they are capable of teaching, repeated failure undermines their perceived mastery. According to Bandura (1995), many beliefs about their teaching happen by learning from colleagues (vicarious experiences). Witnessing other teachers perform, generates one’s feelings that one can also perform. This can, however, be achievable only if the role model is proficient enough (Bandura, 1977; Berg & Smith, 2016; Yoo, 2016). Despite being limited in its impacts, social persuasion also enhances efficacy beliefs of teachers. Literature (DeSantis, 2013; Yoo, 2016) shows that there is a relationship between increases in teacher efficacy and greater opportunities to work with other teachers towards common goals, discuss professional issues, plan and solve problems. Depending on one’s interpretation, the level of emotional arousal (i.e. positive or negative) adds to the feeling of mastery or incompetence (Bandura, 1986; Renner & Pratt, 2017; Usher, 2009). The four Bandura’s hypothesised sources of self-efficacy remain stable across decades of research.

The review of related studies (Favre & Knight, 2016; Haatainen et al., 2021) indicates that there is a link between teacher efficacy and education reforms. Teachers with high levels of self-efficacy are more likely to implement new reforms than teachers with low sense of self-efficacy because engaging in reforms requires persistence of efforts and commitments. This can only be expected from teachers with a strong sense of self-efficacy (Tschannen-Moran & McMaster, 2009). The adoption of new reforms in education influences teachers to develop their sense of self-efficacy, and in turn affects their teaching performance (Favre & Knight, 2016; Gareis & Grant, 2014; Kelchtermans, 2009). Similarly, from 2004 to 2015 Tanzania developed, enacted and implemented the secondary education expansion policy. This policy aimed at increasing access to education, improving equity and enhancing the quality of education (Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, 2008; The World Bank, 2019). The implementation of the expansion policy was, however, associated with diverse challenges such as inadequate in-service teacher education, recruitment of teachers with low academic qualifications, increase of students’ enrolment rates and poor student academic performance.

The concern with the quality of secondary education in Tanzania raises questions about whether the government’s rapid secondary education expansion policy provided adequate professional support and preparation for teachers to become effective professionals. Experience shows that quality teaching demands highly qualified teachers who are pedagogically well prepared to deliver required content-based knowledge and skills (Wang, Lin, Spalding, Klecka, & Odell, 2019). More particularly, when a teacher is highly qualified, and is pedagogically well prepared, she or he has a strong degree of belief (efficacy) towards using a variety of ways to make a difference in students. This study was particularly interested in teachers’ sources of self-efficacy because these sources shape their quality of teaching (Bandura, 1986; 2001; Klassen et al., 2009; Pajares, 2005). Studies which explored the four Bandura’s sources of self-efficacy information are numerous (Can, 2015; Chen & Usher, 2013; Hendricks, 2015; Menon, 2020; Tschannen-Moran & McMaster, 2009). These studies provide insights into how influential the four sources of self-efficacy are, and how they are developed. However, studies that examine the sources of teacher efficacy related attributes alongside or beyond Bandura’s scope are scarcely available. This study, therefore, seeks to address one research question: what salient features of teacher efficacy sources emerged in the context of the secondary education enactment and implementation?

Theoretical Framework

Bandura’s social cognitive theory was utilised in this study in order to understand the extent to which the challenges associated with the secondary education development plan impacted on teachers in relation to their construction of self-efficacy. The theory contends that environment, behaviour and personal factors in one way or another interact to influence teacher efficacy construction (Bandura, 1997; Santrock, 2011). These factors operate in a triadic reciprocal fashion to shape the functioning of the three factors.

New secondary schools in Tanzania are the product of shared initiatives between the community and the central government (Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, 2008; Ndalichako, 2019; The World Bank, 2019). The quality of education of these schools is often monitored by quality assurers or school inspectors (The World Bank, 2015; United Republic of Tanzania-URT, 2014). In their work, therefore, secondary school teachers in the country interact with school inspectors (monitoring mechanisms), and the communities in which the newly established schools are located. Teachers’ interactions with diverse contexts would have impacts on how they develop their sense of self-efficacy.

According to this theory, changes in environment lead to changes in behaviour and personal perspectives. Similarly, changes in behaviours shape personal beliefs and environment. The environment in which the newly built schools operated in Tanzania produced a range of consequences on student performance (Lyimo et al., 2017; Twaweza, 2013). This performance would, in turn, impact on teachers’ work lives, especially on how they construct their self-efficacy. Moreover, Bandura (2001) in his theory asserts that mastery of teaching requires practice as it involves personal, behavioural and environmental factors. When teachers interact with colleagues and students, their teaching behaviour tends to be shaped because they learn from one another (Bandura, 1995; Santrock, 2011). Similarly, during the implementation of the secondary education expansion plan teachers interacted with diverse colleagues and students who came from different culture and background. As teachers interacted with such situations, they developed subjective perceptions according to what they are experiencing. These perceptions would shape their teaching behaviour and their ways of creating their self-efficacy in particular.

Evidence (Locke & Johnston, 2016; Loo & Choy, 2013) also suggests that teachers construct their self-efficacy when they perform their duties in challenging environment and experience success with difficult tasks with little support. Indeed, newly established schools in Tanzania operated in environments associated with numerous intimidating challenges such as inadequate funding, low morale, curriculum changes, inadequate in-service teacher education and poor classroom climate. It was expected that teachers would demonstrate diverse personal beliefs and attitudes around their ability to influence teaching and learning in such situations. These feelings would be influenced by contextual and cultural factors that were specific to the location of the new schools (Brunning et al., 2011). In due course, it was expected that teachers’ interactions with diverse environments would have influence on their practice and self-efficacy construction. Since behaviours of teachers are unique (Canrinus et al., 2012; Santrock, 2011), mechanisms in responding to the expansion policy might also vary. While some teachers might positively respond to the expansion policy by increasing more effort, others might respond negatively (Braun et al., 2010; Toom et al., 2017).

Methods

Research Design

The secondary education expansion policy and its implications for the sources of teacher efficacy was investigated using a qualitative case study design. Typically, a qualitative case study design seeks to understand how teachers interpreted the social world as they interact with diverse environment (Ivankova, 2015; Lichtman, 2006). MacMillan and Schumacher (2010) assert that the social context is an essential data source because it shapes everything that individuals do. As data are gathered in a particular context, the social worlds of participants are acknowledged to be of significant value in understanding the phenomena under investigation (in this case, sources of teacher efficacy beliefs). It is through a qualitative case study design that new knowledge is generated, understood, interpreted and experienced (Soklaridis, 2009; Wellington, 2008).

A case study is an in-depth investigation one particular event, natural setting or single subject (Cresswell, 2013; Walliman, 2006; Yin, 2011). One of the factors which clearly distinguish case studies from other forms of qualitative inquiry is that these studies focus on bounded system (Hancock & Algozzine, 2006; Yin, 2011). Bounded system in a qualitative case study can either be an individual, school, the site, classroom or program that the researcher is interested to examine. In this study, therefore, the bounded system involved teachers, secondary schools and the region in Tanzania where these selected schools were situated. According to Yin (2011), a case study design is important to be considered when the study seeks to answer ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions. Similarly, this study explored how the expansion policy associated challenges affected the construction of teacher efficacy.

Sources of Data

This study used primary sources of data as they provide original or the first-hand information about the phenomena under investigation (i.e. sources of teacher efficacy) (Mutch, 2013). These data are usually obtained through participants’ own oral testimony as they interact with the researcher in their settings where the problem exists (Bordens & Abbott, 2008; Cohen et al., 2011). This study consisted of teachers and school heads that were purposively drawn from two highly and two lowly performing newly built secondary schools in one of the regions in Tanzania. Therefore, a total of 28 participants took part in this study.

Literature (Bandura, 1995; Berg & Smith, 2016; Handtke & Bögeholz, 2019) suggests that self-efficacy varies in terms of demographic information. Teachers who participated in this study were selected on the basis of gender, teaching experience and subject areas of specialisation. This information offers an overview about how individuals’ perspectives vary or relate to each other (Yin, 2011). Apart from the school head, two teachers with at least 10 years of service within each school were invited to participate in this study. Out of the two teachers selected for each school, one of them was a male and the other one was female. It is expected that a teacher with such adequate years of service could provide data in relation to personal experiences across the entire expansion programme and demonstrate how this impact on his or her sense of self-efficacy. Sixteen teachers (i.e. eight natural science, and eight humanities and social science subject teachers) across the four sampled schools engaged in this study as well. Of the 16 teachers, eight were males and the other eight were females. While qualitative related studies focus on understanding the participants’ perspectives, samples for quantitative studies are better when the number of participants is high (Bryman, 2012; Hatch, 2002). This small sample of schools in the present study, therefore, provides rich and in-depth insights (Mutch, 2013; Yin, 2011) about the expansion policy and its effects on the construction of teacher efficacy.

Tools of Data Collection

Data were mainly gathered by using individual interviews (IT) and focus group interviews (FG). Before embarking on actual research, pilot study was undertaken in order to estimate the duration of interviews and identify awkward interview questions (Best & Khan, 2006; Cresswell, 2013). As such, none of the interview questions were eliminated, but unclear questions were refined. Interview schedule with questions was used to facilitate an approach to the participants in seeking their perceptions, experiences and ideas (Bailey et al., 2011; Seidman, 2006). The interview form had eight questions. Some examples of questions included in the interview form or schedule were: how has the increase of secondary schools affected schooling and your ability to do your job? and how does student performance affect your teaching profession? Alongside using guiding open-ended questions, more questions were probed to participants’ depending on their responses (Hatch, 2002). Twelve teachers (i.e. three from each school) were individually interviewed. The one-to-one interviews for each participant occupied approximately 80 minutes. This length of sessions allows participants to openly share their feelings, experiences, impressions and beliefs (Mutch, 2013; Suter, 2006).

Two natural science and two humanities and social science subject teachers were selected to participate in a focus group interview. Those categorized as humanities and social science teachers were those who taught subjects such as History, English, Kiswahili, Geography, Civics and General Studies. Focus group interviews enable differences and similarities in participants’ perspectives and experiences to become apparent during the sharing of knowledge and skills (Yin, 2011). There were four focus group interviews (i.e. one from each school). Each focus group interview (FG) occupied approximately 80 and 120 minutes in order to provide an opportunity for each member of the group feel relaxed and able to contribute to the discussion (Bailey et al., 2011). In order to improve the accuracy of data, tape recordings were used subject to participants’ consent. The introductory letter and consent form were distributed to teachers to decide whether or not they would be interested to be recoded and participate in this study. Only teachers who signed a consent form and returned back to me were allowed to take part in this study. All school and teacher names are pseudonym. The names of schools were labelled ‘Hillcrest’ and ‘Old City’ (highly performing schools), as well as ‘Union’ and ‘Lake Zone’ (lowly performing schools).

Data Analysis

The gathered data were inductively analysed using four stages as proposed by Suter (2006) and Latess (2008). Initially, taped interviews were transcribed in order to allow the visual view and coding process (Mutch, 2013). Thereafter, a copy of the transcripts was provided to participants for them to review, amend and approve. This was followed by reading and re-reading the interview transcripts in order to get familiarised with the data. During this process, all key ideas were jotted down. Regular reading of the data facilitated the researcher to come across with more ideas not realised previously. After familiarisation of data, initial codes were generated. Coding was performed on a line by line, word by word, phrase by phrase and paragraph by paragraph basis (Cohen et al., 2011; MacMillan & Schumacher, 2010). The segments of information were then labelled with codes. For example, the developed code for teachers’ narratives who were concerned that although changes have been introduced in their syllabus, they were not prepared to implement them was ‘The lack of professional support’. Once codes were created, the collected data were repeatedly visited in order to identify further unique ideas. While redundant codes were reduced, similar ideas were grouped together under each respective source of self-efficacy they belonged to.

Findings

It was evident that the secondary education expansion policy in the way it was enacted and implemented produced a range of negative sentiments to teachers, particularly how they felt about themselves as teaching professionals. These negative sentiments emerged as a result of teachers’ perceived poor working conditions which existed in the newly built schools. Findings indicate that the expansion plan associated challenges produced impacts mainly on the three out of four sources of self-efficacy: mastery experiences, social persuasions, and physiological and emotional states. The participants’ perspectives and their lived experiences helped to identify more patterns related to the sources of information as it is reported on below.

Mastery Experiences

According to Bandura, sources of self-efficacy information are not necessarily the same in terms of their strengths; one can be influential or powerful than others. Despite Bandura’s conclusion that mastery experience is the most powerful source, the reasons for this were scarcely available. This study, however, found that mastery experience is the most influential source because it is unlimited in scope. This means that it is more than providing performance information or the results that have been achieved in undertaking a particular task; it also offers information about one’s aptitudes.

The participants’ perspectives in relation to the government’s initiatives to address the shortage of teachers in the context of the expansion plan give evidence about how extensive mastery experience is. Three more experienced teachers did not believe that teachers who are prepared for only four weeks would become professionally ‘competent’. Mary, who participated in the short-term preparation programme before improving her qualifications to a bachelor degree remarked:

I did not feel particularly competent to teach when I was posted in this school as a licensed teacher. This was because of the limited time of pre-service teacher education of which I was exposed to. (Female/Experienced Teacher/Hillcrest/IT).

This suggests that mastery in teaching profession as an experience is also about teachers’ confidence that they can make a difference in students’ learning. It further indicates that mastery experience develops into a critically influential source of self-efficacy as it gets shape and reshaped by other sources.

Bandura’s explanation of the effect of role models and student performance as sources of self-efficacy information is a narrowly focused one. For Bandura, student performance is mainly related to a teacher’s mastery experiences as a self-efficacy source. This study found that during the enactment and implementation of the expansion policy, student performance also affected physiological and emotional states, and social persuasion. This was evident when Joyce remarked:

Our perceived contentment and happiness, as well as our self-respect or self-esteem deteriorates when students perform poorly in their National Examinations (Female/Science Teacher/Union/FG).

While the sense of ‘contentment’ and ‘happiness’ reflect physiological and emotional states, self-respect or self-esteem is related to social/verbal persuasion. Similarly, three teachers were anxious that the government’s trends to recruit less qualified teachers prompted highly qualified teachers to lack suitable colleagues with whom they could share experiences in order to develop themselves professionally. This implies that role models not only affect vicarious experience but also impact on teachers’ mastery experiences. Therefore, the participants’ perspectives and their lived experiences provide more evidence that the effect of role models and student performance are not necessarily associated with a single source of self-efficacy.

Social Persuasion

Twelve out of 28 teachers expected that the government and the community would respect them as educational professionals. However, these teachers felt demoralised when they realised that the community did not respect them. In general, teachers in Tanzania desire more respect from the community but unfortunately they do not get it as they expect (Ishumi, 2013). They also want a sense of privilege, entitlement and recognition. In this regard, Stephen stated, ‘Civil servants in other government’s sectors are promoted and paid at the right time. Therefore, delays in promotion and salary advancement prompt teachers to feel that they are neglected or not recognised by the government’ (Male/Science Teacher/Lake Zone/FG). The participants were concerned that teachers, who develop a notion that they are not valued, perceive the teaching occupation as undesirable and worthless. Anna gave this example:

Because of the promotion issue, the salary paid to the diploma in education holder teacher is less than that paid to the person with the same qualifications in other fields. This inequality in pay for the personnel with the same qualifications makes mockery of the teaching profession. Again, the small salaries paid to teachers result in many people not being attracted with the teaching profession (Female/Head of School/Hillcrest/IT).

According to the respondents, before embarking on the expansion plan, individuals interested to become primary and secondary school teachers, respectively, attended two or three years in teachers’ colleges or universities in order to acquire a teaching diploma or bachelors’ degree. Eight participants noted that the government’s decision to allow advanced school graduates to enrol in the four-week crash programme is considered by the wider community unacceptable. Owing to the scope of this programme, these teachers are labelled ‘vodafasta’, a reference to one of subscriber airtime promotion advertisements which provides instant airtime recharge. This labelling indicates a community’s widespread view that these programmes are a disgrace to the profession of teaching as teachers who have opportunities to such programmes would be less effective in teaching their children. James concluded by commenting, ‘Such social criticism discourages school graduates with high academic performance from entering the teaching profession; instead, they choose other careers, which are respected by the community or society’. (Male/Head of School/Union/IT).

When asked how the national examination results in the course of the expansion policy affected the teaching profession, two participants provided varied responses. On one hand, Stephen stated that when students perform well, teachers feel ‘proud’ and the community ‘trust’ them. This guarantees the cooperation between parents and teachers (Male/Experienced/Old City/IT). On the other hand, Debora remarked, ‘Those parents whose children fail in their examinations point fingers at teachers accusing them that they have nothing to celebrate since their notable achievement is to make students fail and these blames discourage teachers’ (Female/Humanities and Social Science Teacher/Lake Zone/FG).

As previously noted, Bandura focused his attention on feedback, encouragement and moral support in illuminating social persuasion as a teacher efficacy input. This study, therefore, contributes knowledge to Bandura’s self-efficacy theory by indicating that in some contexts, teachers’ perceived status is part and parcel of social persuasion which can serve to impact on their self-efficacy. Alongside this, the current study revealed that labelling and social stigma, the sense of proud, alienation or isolation, dislike, respect (or lack of), trust (or lack of), aspects of self-image, care, appreciation (or lack of) and reputation are integral part of social persuasion for the teachers. In this light, it can infer that a number of teachers interviewed were often extrinsically motivated. Pertinent to this, the inadequate nature of the expansion plan enactment results in teachers feeling constrained in terms of their aptitude to exercise judgement.

Physiological and Emotional States

Bandura (2001) argues that physiological and emotional states such as positive and negative moods have impacts on the construction of self-efficacy. In most of his writings, although Bandura emphasizes that physiological and emotional states can increase or decrease teachers’ self-beliefs in relation to their teaching abilities, he seems to overlook identifying factors responsible for such states. This study, however, discovered that negative physiological and emotional states in teachers are caused by factors such as being ignored, accused, burdened, threatened, and victimised or harmed. For instance, teachers revealed that although the well-intended government efforts to broaden access to education, concerns remain with scarcity of qualified teachers especially when they go for in-service training. This may have implications on timely curriculum coverage. Calvin commented:

Given that the school has only three teachers, it is possible that those teachers are being overworked because the same teacher would be required to teach, deal with students’ discipline and also work as a head of department. This is one of the reasons for the mass failure of students. Even though the authorities are aware of this problem, after this mass failure of students, the same authorities blame teachers for the problem-that they are not teaching. (Male/Science Teacher/Union/FG).

It was observed that the shortage of science teachers in the course of enactment plan was one of the challenges experienced by teachers in preparing students to perform better academically. Due to this critical shortage, the available teachers were obliged to teach two subjects in many classes and streams. In relation to this, Rachel remarked:

Having to teach two subjects in the same class is psychologically bad for students because if they find a teacher to be boring in one subject, they still have to endure the same teacher in the second subject. When this situation happens, the students may end up ‘disliking’ a teacher (Female/Experienced Teacher/Union/IT).

This implies that high teaching workload not only negatively affects emotional and physiological states of teachers but also their social persuasions as sources of information. In theorising physiological and emotional states, the literature focuses on teachers’ stress and anxieties around what happens in the classroom and school. This study, however, found that the negative perspectives of the teaching profession demonstrated by the community prompted teachers to feel ‘disenchanted’ with their profession. Bernard, for example, noted:

‘You yourself saw, yesterday at the roadside, teachers were boarding cars to go to the next village where they have rented houses. We do so because we are afraid of being harmed or victimised at any time by the community’ (Female/Humanities and Science Teacher/Lake Zone/FG).

Joseph concluded that this attitude instigated teachers and the community to live like enemies. Because of this, teachers also treated students they taught like enemies. Such hostile social relations undermine teachers’ effort to effectively discharge their duties (Male/Head of School/Lake Zone/IT). The perspectives from Bernard and Joseph suggest that there are important sources of emotional and physiological states beyond the school and classroom, and often these are culturally specific.

Discussion

This study revealed that the diverse contexts in which Tanzanian secondary school teachers interacted with when enacting and implementing the expansion policy determined their ways in which they constructed their self-efficacy. This supports Bandura’s view that contextual factors determine how individuals select, interpret and weigh sources of self-efficacy information (Bandura, 1977; Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). Although Bandura and other self-efficacy scholars such as Usher and Pajares (2009), and Loo and Choy (2013) point out that mastery experience is the most powerful source of information, this was not the case for current study. If the sources of information pointed out in this research are hierarchically ranked, the first priority would be given to physiological and emotional states, followed by social persuasion and mastery experiences. In a study by Hodges and Murphy (2009), however, vicarious experiences were the most important source of information. Social persuasion and emotional and physiological states were lowly ranked. Similar inconsistency in relation to the strength of the sources of information is evident in other numerous studies (Nga, 2015; Usher & Pajares, 2009; Wagler, 2011). For example, Nga (2015) who explored Vietnamese teachers’ perceived self-efficacy in relation to teaching English as a foreign language found that social persuasion was more influential source of efficacy than the other three sources. The results obtained in this research support the opinion of Jungert et al. (2014) that sources of self-efficacy are dynamic, multidimensional and context specific in nature.

According to Bandura (1997), vicarious experience is a product of teachers’ interaction with either their colleagues or other authority figures similar to them. In Tanzania, individuals such as school heads, school inspectors and educational officials who are responsible to observe classroom teaching and provide support to teachers are appointed from among teachers. As with Britner and Pajares (2006), this study found that vicarious experiences are not repeatedly reported as compared to the other three sources. This trend might be associated with school inspectors’ infrequent visit to schools. According to the government Ministry of Education, a teacher should be inspected at least once per year (The United Republic of Tanzania, 2018). Evidence (Anderson & Sayre, 2016; Komba, 2017), however, indicates that because of inadequate funding, shortage of personnel and lack of transport, school inspectors visit schools only once after two or three years with some rural schools being scarcely visited. This not only compromises teachers’ vicarious experiences but also their mastery experiences as these teachers lack support which may facilitate them to grow as teaching professionals (Bandura, 1997; Gao, 2020).

It was also observed that hostile culture has detrimental impacts on sources of teachers’ self-efficacy as it intensifies their negative emotional states. Inadequate collaborative culture prompts teachers to develop negative attitudes towards the teaching profession because they feel less supported and less valued (Kennedy, 2016; Marsh & Mitchell, 2014). Teachers of this category are likely to place limited focus on lesson preparation, and thereby affecting their mastery of teaching. The present study findings are inconsistent with Soupen (2013) who compared teacher efficacy in different New Zealand schools. In this study, socioeconomic status strongly determined the efficacy beliefs of teachers. Teachers from schools with high-socioeconomic status demonstrated more positive physiological and emotional states than low-socioeconomic counterparts. The discrepancy in the weighing the sources of teacher efficacy illuminates the argument made by numerous self-efficacy researchers, that teachers may differently rely on sources of self-efficacy as a function of either ethnic/cultural background, gender or learning domains (Iaochite & Neto, 2014; Phan & Locke, 2015).

In line with Usher and Pajares (2009) and Arslan (2013), this study found that mastery experiences varied in accordance with teaching experiences and academic qualifications. The highly qualified and more experienced teachers believed that their licensed colleagues lack mastery experiences. This seem to suggest that highly experienced and qualified teachers regarded less experienced licensed teachers to be poorly prepared and inefficiently unable to equip learners desired skills and knowledge. The implication here is that if there are positive student achievements in the new schools, the licensed teachers’ perceived lack of mastery experiences would not persist. The relationship between poor student performance and licensed teachers’ mastery experience raises questions, because new schools in Tanzania are staffed by both qualified and less qualified teachers. Overall, the expressed negative perspectives suggest that during the enactment and implementation of the expansion plan, the licensed teachers lacked professional support from experienced colleagues. Even though the licensed teachers were not adequately prepared, their interaction with their experienced teachers (i.e. role models) would enable them to learn from one another. This would, again, enhance their mastery of teaching. Literature (Akiri & Dori, 2021; Karlberg & Bezzina, 2020; Mohan, 2016) indicates that the more closely the novice teachers collaborate with their role models, the stronger the mastery experiences will be. This, however, depends on how proficient the role model is. Bandura (1997) concludes that when a model is more proficient, the mastery experiences of the observer is enhanced and vice versa.

Conclusion and Policy Implications

Evidence from this study indicates that as teachers perform their duties in diverse environment, new patterns of information emerge and develop. Again, this confirms that sources of self-efficacy information are dynamic and context-specific (Bandura, 1986; Goodman, 2010). The results of this study provide insights into how the teaching professionalism can be enhanced. The negative consequences and or factors of the expansion plan enables policy-makers device teaching environments conducive to construct self-beliefs of teachers in relation to their ability to enhance effective learning. In addition, understanding the challenge implications of the expansion plan may increase awareness in policy-makers of the importance of thinking about issues regarding the teacher efficacy in the initial stage of policy formulation. Research by Devos (2010) indicates clearly that students who exhibit poor academic performance, learn in poor environments or have a high probability of being taught by under prepared teachers. This study, therefore, draws the attention to the Tanzanian government to the importance of adequate preparation in terms of funding teacher education, the resources to facilitate teaching and learning processes, and the production of sufficient quality teachers before adopting educational reforms.

Since vicarious experiences are seldom evident in this research, deliberate effort to enhance the inspectoral department financially and materially is warranted. This will help the school inspectors to visit schools regularly and share their professional knowledge and experiences with their teachers. As earlier noted, the challenges associated with the expansion policy produced impacts on sources of self-efficacy information. This study, therefore, recommends other researchers to develop best-fit instruments to measure and investigate the extent to which these sources of information affected teacher efficacy.