Teachers’ Self-efficacy Beliefs: The Relationship between Gender and Instructional Strategies, Classroom Management and Student Engagement

Abstract

The study investigated the relationship between gender and self-efficacy beliefs in instructional strategies, classroom management and student engagement among senior high school teachers in Kumasi metropolis, as most previous studies tend to focused on the developed countries other than developing countries like Ghana. Specifically, descriptive survey design was used to determine the levels of self-efficacy beliefs among the teachers and the relationship between gender and teachers’ self-efficacies were also ascertained. The sample included 259 male and 178 female teachers who were randomly drawn from both private and public senior high schools. Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) was used to collect data from the respondents. Data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results indicated that generally teachers have relatively higher self-efficacy beliefs especially at the student engagement aspect. It was found that male and female teachers differed in relation to their instructional strategies with female teachers on average have better instructional strategies efficacy than male teachers. On contrary, both male and female teachers did not differ in terms of classroom management and student engagement efficacies. Based on these findings, it was recommended that teacher training institutions should emphasise the teaching of instructional practices, student engagement and classroom management practices to the teacher trainees so as to improve their efficacies level.