Administrative assignment of teachers in restructuring secondary schools: The effect of out-of-field course responsibility on teacher efficacy

Previous studies have treated teacher efficacy ar a unitary trait without c onsidering how teachers' expectations of their ability to produce student l earning varies within teaching assignments. In this study, teachers in nine restructuring secondary schools in one district estimated their ability to perform common teaching tasks in four of the courses they expected to teac h in the coming school year Although the portion of the variance explained was small, the study found that reacher efficacy was lower for courses outs ide the teacher's subject The effects of teaching outside one's area were g reater than the effects of track and grade-two course characteristics that hare been linked to reacher efficacy in previous research This study also f ound that teacher efficacy was influenced by leacher leadership roles. Teac hers who were expected to promote student learning across subjects had lowe r reacher efficacy than teachers in traditional positions of added responsi bility (department heads) and teachers who were not in leadership positions .