The relation between teachers\u27 personal teaching efficacy and students\u27 academic efficacy for science and inquiry science

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between middle school teachers\u27 personal teaching efficacy and their students\u27 academic efficacy for science and inquiry science. Teachers can create classroom environments that promote the development of students\u27 science self-efficacy (Britner & Pajares, 2006). Teachers who are efficacious and believe they are able to effectively teach science are more comfortable teaching science (Plourde, 2002) and more likely to commit classroom time to teaching science. Additionally, they are better equipped to challenge and support students as they develop their science skills and efficacy beliefs. Therefore, it was expected that teachers\u27 personal teaching efficacy for science would be related to their students\u27 science efficacy. Similarly, it was predicted that teachers\u27 personal teaching efficacy for inquiry science would be related to their students\u27 inquiry science efficacy. It was expected that the relation between teacher and student efficacy would not differ by students\u27 gender. Data was collected from 26 middle school science teachers who were participating in a professional development program and 660 students from their classes. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analyses were completed to evaluate the relation between teacher and student efficacy for science and inquiry science. Planned analyses revealed no significant predictors of students\u27 science and inquiry science efficacy. Exploratory analyses were then conducted which added student grade and a measure evaluating the quality of teacher-student relationships to the original HLM analyses. Results indicated a significant interaction between the quality of teacher-student relationships and student grade on the prediction of students\u27 science and inquiry science efficacy. A discussion of the results along with limitations of the study and avenues for future research will be provided