Pre-service teachers’ efficacy beliefs and concerns in Malaysia, England and New Zealand

This study compared perceptions of teacher efficacy beliefs and concerns about teaching in pre-service teacher cohorts from New Zealand, Malaysia, and England. Participants were primary pre-service teachers from Malaysia (n = 53), New Zealand (n = 100), and England (n = 119), who completed the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy (long form) (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) and the Concerns About Teaching Scale (Smith, Corkery, Buckley & Calvert, 2012) at the beginning of the second year of their teaching programs. Eight focus groups (n = 4 to 8 each) were conducted to further explore the issues. Results indicated that both culture and context are important in regard to pre-service teachers’ concerns about teaching and their teacher efficacy beliefs. Differences by nation were most evident in the comparatively low efficacy beliefs reported by the Malaysian pre-service teachers, who also expressed concerns about teaching class sizes of 50 primary students, having subject-based rather than class-based contact with students, and dealing with high parental expectations of student success. Results are discussed in terms of practical applications when preparing pre-service teachers from the cultural contexts represented by the participants.