The Impacts of Peer Observation Roles and Teaching Characteristics on Teacher Self-Efficacy: A Secondary Data Analysis Study Using the TALIS Survey

It is important for teachers to have a high sense of self-efficacy, as it is one of the prime motivational forces influencing student learning, teacher quality, and in turn, overall success (Curry, 2015; Hattie, 2009; Klassen & Chiu, 2010). Teachers with high self-efficacy work harder, are more involved in learning, and have higher assurance (Bandura, 1994). For these reasons, it is imperative to study the influencers of teacher self-efficacy. Peer observations and observational feedback, a highly used practice in all schools, is one of those influencers. This cycle of observations and feedback provided to teachers is influential to teacher self-efficacy (Akkuzu, 2014; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk-Hoy, 2007). Therefore, a secondary data analysis utilizing the TALIS teacher survey was conducted to further examine the relationships between the dependent variable of teacher self-efficacy in the domains of classroom management, instruction, student engagement, and overall, and the independent variables of a teacher’s role in peer observations, teacher age, teacher gender, and teacher years of experience. Findings indicated that female teachers had higher self-efficacy in all domains. Self-efficacy levels in all domains increased with age and years of teaching experience, but notably decreased for those with the most experience. Overall, self-efficacy levels were at its height when a teacher was between the age of 40 through 49 or older than 60. Teachers also had the highest self-efficacy levels in all domains when a teacher had between 21 and 25 years of experience. Furthermore, teachers who were observers in peer observations had higher levels of self-efficacy than teachers who did not observe any peers. Contrastingly, teachers who were observed through peer observations had lower levels of self-efficacy than teachers who were not observed