Abstract

Strong teachers are one of the best predictors of student success in education. Teachers who possess a strong sense of self-efficacy have the greatest effect on student achievement. Teacher shortage and turnover studies have shown that self-efficacy relates to job satisfaction in teaching. This mixed-methods sequential explanatory design study examined the relationships between professional development, self-efficacy, and job satisfaction for new instructors in professional and technical programs. The primary goal of the study was to examine and determine the potential relationship between the independent variable of professional development and two dependent variables of self-efficacy and job satisfaction. The study was conducted at a community college in East Texas using a small sample of technical instructors who had less than three years of teaching experience and were divided into an experimental group, which participated in a professional development program during the one-semester study period, and a control group, which received no training. The results of the study showed the experimental group had significantly larger gains in self-efficacy compared to the control group. The findings showed no significant differences between experimental and control groups based on job satisfaction or years of experience as an educator. While the analysis showed a significant direct correlation between professional development in new instructors and strong teacher self-efficacy, the limited size of study sample indicated the need for further and broader research into the relationship between professional development and teacher self-efficacy.

Date of publication

Spring 5-1-2015

Document Type

Dissertation (Local Only Access)

Language

english

Persistent identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10950/261

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