Academic self-efficacy (ASE) refers to a student's global belief in his/her ability to master the various academic challenges at university and is an essential antecedent of wellbeing and performance. The five-item General Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (GASE) showed promise as a short and concise measure for overall ASE. However, of its validity…

Purpose: This study sought to investigate how secondary agriculture teachers' characteristics influence their perceived ability to teach students decision-making skills. Design/Methodology/Approach: We used a cross-sectional survey research design and distributed the instrument to secondary agriculture teachers in the U.S. via Facebook. We…

Purpose: Collective teacher efficacy (CTE) is a promising construct for understanding how schools can foster student achievement. Although much of the early research on CTE took place in North America, researchers from other parts of the world are now delving into this topic. The current study explores whether these powerful collective beliefs…

This study is a comparative research investigating whether cultural competence of preservice teachers is causally related to their social justice and self-efficacy beliefs in Turkey, South Korea and the United States. The study group involved pre-service teachers from Turkey (n = 560), South Korea (n = 790) and the United States (n = 352). The…

There has been substantial scholarly attention given to teachers' functioning over the past two decades. Much of this attention has been precipitated by accounts of increasing teacher burnout and attrition from the profession. Central to this scholarly focus has been the construct of teacher self-efficacy, which has been shown to be a predictor of…

Background: While empirical research on creativity has grown steadily over the past 35 years, teachers' beliefs about creativity and their implicit beliefs about teaching for creativity remains understudied, as well as cross-cultural examination of teacher beliefs in this area. Aims: This study explored the measurement invariance of beliefs about…

Generally, the academic disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic (STEM) is viewed as a gender-specific field of study, dominated primarily by white males. Similarly, women, immigrant minorities, people of color, and Hispanics have been underrepresented in these fields. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to…

Extant literature indicates that international graduate students may experience writing anxiety. Using a grounded theory analysis, we sought to understand how Chinese international graduate students (n = 15) experienced writing anxiety in an R1 public university. Findings revealed that writing anxiety among these students was related to (1) their…

Political scientists have found that one of the strongest predictors of political participation is political efficacy, the belief that individuals' actions can influence political processes. Prior research indicates that political efficacy increases through various experiences, such as discussions of public issues, but it does not explain why or…

This study examined associations between parents' developmentally appropriate beliefs about young children's play and responsive parenting. Low-income parents and their children enrolled in Head Start programmes (n = 231) in the United States participated in the study. Responsive parenting skills (characterized by high levels of warmth and…

Studies show that use of computer-based information communication technologies (ICTs) can have positive impacts on student motivation and learning. The present study examines the issue of ICT adoption in the classroom by expanding the Technology Acceptance Model to identify factors that contribute to teacher acceptance and use of these…

This study investigated factors that influenced the academic self-efficacy of Caribbean overseas students attending universities in the United States, and the themes that emerged from their perceptions of variables impacting their academic self-efficacy. Seven major themes (educational background, faith in God, finances, age and maturity,…

In this article, two teachers from a public school in the United States describe their beliefs about the importance of using student voice as a foundation for increasing student efficacy, recognizing student individuality, and addressing curriculum standards. Sharing examples from their classrooms, the authors illustrate how student voice can help…

Meta-analyses of the findings from 29 studies including 4,194 early childhood practitioners showed that different practitioner belief appraisals (endorsement, importance, self-efficacy) were related to the intent to use and the adoption and use of different kinds of early childhood practices (developmentally appropriate practices, curricular…

The theme for the 62nd annual conference of the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers was Educating for a Just Society. Connie Briggs, previous Program Chair, reminded us that, "Education has always been the foundation of a democratic nation. It is important that our students understand the principles upon which our nation was…