Teachers’ Self-efficacy on School Improvement: A Comparative Analysis of Private and Public Junior High Schools in the Takoradi Metropolis, Ghana

Abstract

One construct of teachers’ belief that has consistently been associated with the numerous qualities of an effective teacher, is teacher efficacy. Varying studies conducted have established relationships between teacher efficacy and motivation, learners’ outcomes and job performance. More so, studies conducted have attributed the differences in the performance of public and private schools to supervision, school climate, availability of teaching, and learning materials among others. However, not much has been studied about the teachers’ belief in these two working environments. The study therefore sought to examine teacher efficacy in public and private basic schools and how it influenced the general improvement of their schools. A correlational design was employed for the study. The stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 15 public and private schools; a total of 134 teachers comprising 90 public and 44 private basic school teachers respectively. A standard questionnaire for measuring teacher efficacy was used in gathering data. The study revealed that, among other things, though, there are more professional teachers in public schools than private schools, teachers in the latter have a slightly higher efficacy. More so, there was no relationship between teacher qualification and teacher efficacy. Thus, it was recommended that, in the short term, circuit supervisors and heads of schools should organize seminars for teachers on changing their mindset about teaching in general and learners who go to public schools in particular, since this has serious implications for teachers’ self-efficacy and school improvement.