Pre- and In-service EFL Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy and Teaching Concerns

This study examined pre- and in-service English as a foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ sense of efficacy and teaching concerns and also the relationships within and between their concern and efficacy subscale scores. Two instruments, the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) and the Teaching Concerns Checklist (TCC), were used. First, while in-service EFL teachers were found to be more self-efficacious, pre-service EFL teachers were observed to have higher concern levels. Second, both pre- and in-service EFL teachers’ sense of efficacy and teaching concern scores indicated a positively strong relationship within both concern and efficacy subscale scores. This relationship suggests that an increase or a decrease in one efficacy or concern subdimension affects the other efficacy or teaching concern subdimensions. Third, between TCC and TSES subscale scores, a negatively moderate correlation was observed for both groups of teachers, which suggests that high confidence in one’s ability to teach is negatively correlated with teaching concerns.