Bandura’s Teacher Efficacy Scale (BTES)

Abstract

The Bandura’s Teacher Efficacy Scale (BTES) is a comprehensive psychological instrument designed to assess a teacher’s perceived ability (or self-efficacy) to successfully organize and execute courses of action required across various critical school activities. This questionnaire helps researchers and school administrators gain a deeper understanding of the challenges and perceived competence that educators experience across instructional, disciplinary, and organizational domains.

The instrument covers seven distinct dimensions of efficacy, including influence over decision-making, instructional practices, classroom discipline, and the ability to enlist involvement from parents and the community to foster a positive school environment. Responses are confidential and utilize a 9-point scale to quantify the perceived degree of influence an educator believes they possess.

Keywords

Teacher Efficacy, Self-Efficacy, Instructional Efficacy, Disciplinary Efficacy, School Climate, Parental Involvement, Community Involvement, Teacher Assessment, Social Cognitive Theory.

Authors

Albert Bandura, Anita Woolfolk Hoy (Disseminator/Adapter).

Purpose

The primary purpose of the BTES is to quantify the strength of a teacher’s belief in their capacity to successfully handle the complex and diverse responsibilities inherent in the teaching profession. It is used to identify specific areas where teachers feel highly competent versus areas where they perceive significant difficulties or lack of influence.

By measuring these domain-specific efficacy beliefs, the scale serves as a diagnostic tool for educational institutions. The resulting data can inform the design of targeted professional development programs, helping educators build confidence and competence in areas critical for improving student outcomes and overall school effectiveness.

Construct

The BTES measures the construct of Teacher Efficacy, which is rooted in Albert Bandura’s broader theory of Self-Efficacy. Teacher Efficacy is defined as a teacher’s judgment of their capabilities to bring about desired engagement and learning outcomes, even among students who may be difficult or unmotivated.

The instrument operationalizes this construct across multiple dimensions that reflect the full scope of a teacher’s role, moving beyond the classroom walls to include organizational and community influence. These dimensions collectively assess the teacher’s perceived agency in controlling both pedagogical processes and the environmental factors that affect learning.

Validity

The BTES, particularly in its 30-item, multi-factor format, generally demonstrates strong construct validity, supported by its foundation in established psychological theory. Validity studies often confirm that scores on the BTES correlate positively with key educational outcomes, such as greater teacher persistence, higher levels of professional commitment, and improved student achievement.

Furthermore, the scale’s content validity is robust, as the items comprehensively cover the range of tasks modern educators are expected to manage, including instructional delivery, behavior management, and stakeholder engagement, ensuring the measure adequately represents the domain of teacher efficacy.

Reliability

Research employing the BTES consistently reports high levels of internal consistency, indicating that the items within each subscale reliably measure the intended underlying construct. Reliability is typically assessed using Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, which for the overall scale and its major factors (e.g., Instructional and Disciplinary Self-Efficacy) are frequently reported to be above the acceptable standard of 0.80, confirming the scale’s stability and dependability.

Factor Analysis

Factor analysis studies of the BTES have validated its multidimensional structure. The instrument is designed to capture seven distinct, yet correlated, dimensions of perceived efficacy, moving beyond earlier models that often treated teacher efficacy as a single global construct. These factors are empirically separable, providing researchers with a nuanced profile of a teacher’s competence beliefs.

The seven factors identified through robust statistical analysis are: Efficacy to Influence Decision Making, Efficacy to Influence School Resources, Instructional Self-Efficacy, Disciplinary Self-Efficacy, Efficacy to Enlist Parental Involvement, Efficacy to Enlist Community Involvement, and Efficacy to Create a Positive School Climate.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-Report Questionnaire (Psychometric Scale)

Format: 30 items, utilizing a 9-point response scale (Likert-type format) to assess the magnitude of perceived influence or capability. The anchors are: 1=Nothing, 3=Very Little, 5=Some Influence, 7=Quite a Bit, 9=A Great Deal.

Language Available: Primarily English; widely translated and adapted for use in numerous international educational contexts.

Population Group: Professional Educators/Teachers.

Age Group: Adult (Teachers actively working in educational environments).

Population Details: Teachers across various grade levels (K-12) and subject areas who are assessing their perceived influence in both classroom and organizational contexts.

Test Methodology: Respondents indicate their level of certainty or perceived influence by circling the appropriate number on the 9-point scale for each statement. Subscale scores and a total efficacy score are typically calculated by averaging item responses.

Keywords

Social Cognitive Theory, Teacher Assessment, Educational Psychology, Professional Development, School Effectiveness, Classroom Management, Teacher Beliefs, Teacher Efficacy.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A (Not provided in source)

Affiliation Email addresses: Contact details often routed through institutional affiliations of researchers maintaining the scale, such as those associated with Anita Woolfolk Hoy at Ohio State University.

Correspondence Address: Correspondence is typically directed to the researchers utilizing the scale or the research group affiliated with the theoretical basis (e.g., Stanford University).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The BTES is widely used in academic research. While the scale itself is generally made available for non-commercial research purposes, users are typically advised to seek explicit permission from the researchers who maintain or adapted the specific version being used (e.g., Anita Woolfolk Hoy). The conceptual refinement of this specific 30-item, seven-factor instrument occurred around the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Reference’s

• Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W. H. Freeman. (Theoretical Foundation)
• Source Instrument Repository (Anita Woolfolk Hoy): http://anitawoolfolkhoy.com/instruments/
• Related Research and Instruments: http://u.osu.edu/hoy.17/research/instruments/
• Related Publications: http://u.osu.edu/hoy.17/publications/

Items of the Bandura’s Teacher Efficacy Scale (BTES)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

This questionnaire is designed to help us gain a better understanding of the kinds of things that create difficulties for teachers in their school activities. Please indicate your opinions about each of the statements below by circling the appropriate number. Your answers will be kept strictly confidential and will not be identified by name.

The response scale is 1=Nothing, 2, 3= Very Little, 4, 5= Some Influence, 6, 7=Quite a Bit, 8, 9=A Great Deal.

1. Efficacy to Influence Decision making
2. How much can you influence the decisions that are made in the school?
3. How much can you express your views freely on important school matters?
4. Efficacy to Influence School Resources
5. How much can you do to get the instructional materials and equipment you need?
6. Instructional Self-Efficacy
7. How much can you do to influence the class sizes in your school?
8. How much can you do to get through to the most difficult students?
9. How much can you do to promote learning when there is lack of support from the home?
10. How much can you do to keep students on task on difficult assignments?
11. How much can you do to increase students’ memory of what they have been taught in previous lessons?
12. How much can you do to motivate students who show low interest in schoolwork?
13. How much can you do to get students to work together?
14. How much can you do to overcome the influence of adverse community conditions on students’ learning?
15. How much can you do to get children to do their homework?
16. Disciplinary Self-Efficacy
17. How much can you do to get children to follow classroom rules?
18. How much can you do to control disruptive behavior in the classroom?
19. How much can you do to prevent problem behavior on the school grounds?
20. Efficacy to Enlist Parental Involvement
21. How much can you do to get parents to become involved in school activities?
22. How much can you assist parents in helping their children do well in school?
23. How much can you do to make parents feel comfortable coming to school?
24. Efficacy to Enlist Community Involvement
25. How much can you do to get community groups involved in working with the schools?
26. How much can you do to get churches involved in working with the school?
27. How much can you do to get businesses involved in working with the school?
28. How much can you do to get local colleges and universities involved in working with the school?
29. Efficacy to create a Positive School Climate
30. How much can you do to make the school a safe place?
31. How much can you do to make students enjoy coming to school?
32. How much can you do to get students to trust teachers?
33. How much can you help other teachers with their teaching skills?
34. How much can you do to enhance collaboration between teachers and the administration to make the school run effectively?
35. How much can you do to reduce school dropout?
36. How much can you do to reduce school absenteeism?
37. How much can you do to get students to believe they can do well in schoolwork?