A teacher's sense of self-efficacy has been consistently recognized as an important attribute of effective teaching and has been positively correlated to teacher and student outcomes (Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy, & Hoy, 1998). A number of studies show the impact of teachers with high levels of efficacy. Students of these teachers have outperformed students who had teachers with lower levels of efficacy on the mathematics section of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (Moore & Esselman, 1992). Greater achievement was also found in rural, urban, majority Black, and majority White schools for students who had teachers with high levels of self-efficacy (Watson, 1991). In addition, studies have shown that teachers with high levels of efficacy have demonstrated different characteristics related to work ethic and pedagogical practice than teachers with low levels of self-efficacy. For example, studies have shown that teachers with high levels of self-efficacy work longer with students that struggle, recognize student errors, and attempt new teaching methods that support students (Gibson & Dembo, 1984; Ashton & Webb, 1986; Guskey, 1988). Czernaik (1990) found that highly efficacious teachers were more likely to use "reform-based" teaching methods, such as inquiry-based and student-centered approaches, while teachers with low levels of self-efficacy used more teacher-directed methods, such as lecturing and textbook reading. The benefits of having high levels of efficacy have been firmly established; therefore, many researchers have explored methods of increasing levels of efficacy in preservice teachers (see Swars, 2005; Palmer, 2006; Utley, Bryant, & Moseley, 2005); but few studies have explored the concept of raising inservice teachers' efficacy levels. This is partly due to the fact that the concept of self-efficacy, as developed by Bandura (1993), has been thought to impact novice individuals early in the context of new learning, thus limiting the studies of practicing or in-service teachers. In this article, we examine teachers' self-efficacy and change over time. In the following section we detail self-efficacy and the ways that self-efficacy can impact teaching.
