Investigating Teachers’ Self-efficacy, Instructional Practice and Self-reflective Practice: The Case of Tertiary Level Teachers

Abstract

Teachers are expected to learn new things about their abilities by thinking about their actions in educational contexts. The dynamic reflection on self-teaching would enable teachers to improve their instructional practice. The present study was an attempt to shed light on university level teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions in relation to their reflective practice and instructional practice. For this purpose, 70 teachers from both public and private universities in Iran took part in this survey research. Participants were asked to fill out three Likert-type questionnaires: Teacher Efficacy Scale, The Instructional Practices Survey, and Teacher Reflection Questionnaire. The collected data were quantitatively analyzed using SPSS version 21. Results of Pearson correlation coefficients revealed that although teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions were significantly correlated with both their instructional practice and reflective practice, the former established a relationship with a higher effect size than the latter. Implications of the results with respect to teacher development are presented and directions for further research are offered.