Collective efficacy of teachers: A longitudinal study in ten German states

Collective efficacy is defined as the subjective certainty to master new or challenging demand situations on the basis of competencies shared by a gro up of persons. A new scale was developed for the assessment of optimistic b eliefs in teacher competencies. The scale was administered to about 300 tea chers twice within one year, in conjunction with two additional self-effica cy measures and three teacher burnout indicators. The psychometric scale tu rned out to be homogeneous and reliable. It was associated negatively with teacher burnout. Self-efficacy and collective efficacy combined were good p redictors of the burnout syndrome one year later, whereas burnout did not a ppear to predict efficacy. Intraindividual differences between self-efficac y and collective efficacy were computed to find out whether teachers' optim istic beliefs were more individualistic or more collectivistic. This differ ence measure varied significantly between the ten schools, and also between the two points in time. The particular role of collective efficacy for sch ool innovation and school consulting is discussed.