Self-efficacy of native and non-native English speaker teachers

In reality, at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies FELTE, ULIS in Vietnam, the teaching of English is in fact provided by

Self-efficacy of native and non-native English

Abstract One of the much under-researched areas in English language education in

Vietnam and elsewhere is teacher self-efficacy Whereas in developed educational systems, it is widely acknowledged that self-efficacious teachers effectively create learning environments conducive to development of cognitive skills Teachers with a low sense of instructional efficacy favor a punishment orientation that relies heavily on negative sanctions to get students to study The study used questionnaire survey to collect information of native and non-native English speaker teachers Results show that both groups have high beliefs on their capabilities to maintain positive classroom climates The two groups also report low level of endorsement on dealing with special needs students The native speaker group, on the other hand, reported high level on monitoring and feedback and classroom management Implications for even better

professional development for NNESTs are then provided

Keywords Tiếng Anh; Phương pháp giảng dạy; Giáo viên

Content

PART A: INTRODUCTION

his opening part illuminates the research problem and rationale for the study, together with the aims, objectives, and the scope of the research Primarily, in this part, the research questions are identified to act as clear guidelines for the whole study

1 Statement of the research problem and rationale for the study

As English becomes a global language for communication and business and the teaching of English becomes a fast growth industry, an increasing number of English language teachers who are non-native speakers of English can be seen in English as a Second Language (ESL) as well

as in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts around the world This raises so much

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interest in issues related to non-native English speaker teachers (NNEST) in the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) that a proliferation of papers, theses, dissertations, and publications has been dedicated to the topic Specifically, the issues of NNESTs have been examined from chiefly three different areas of interest, which are the self-perceptions of NNESTs (e.g Amin, 1997; Medgyes, 1983, 1994; Reves & Medgyes, 1994), the credibility of NNESTs (e.g Amin, 1997, 1999; Braine, 1999; Thomas, 1999), and the meaning

of the label NNES educator and other parties’ perceptions of NNES educators (e.g., Hansen, 2004; Inbar, 2001; J Liu, 1999, 2004) (Kamhi-Stein, 2004)

Self-efficacy, on the other hand, has been a fresh and recent research issue in the field of psychology and education (Bandura, 1995; Llurda, 2005; Graddol, 2007; Liu, 2009, Karimvand, 2011) Self-efficacy, as defined by Bandura (1995), is a person’s beliefs in his or her ability to succeed in a particular situation More precisely, it is “the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations” (Bandura, 1995, p.2) Self-efficacy can have an impact on everything from psychological states to behaviour to motivation, and thus, has become an important topic among psychologists and educators

Research on the self-perceptions of native English speaker teachers (NESTs) has received its fair share of attention (Braine, 1999; Kamhi-Stein, 2004; Llurda, 2005) However, little has been done on the self-efficacy of NNESTs, which is the belief in their own capabilities to succeed in their teaching career which can impact their psychological states, behaviour, and motivation, etc and in turn their students’ learning outcomes and achievement

In reality, at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies (FELTE, ULIS) in Vietnam, the teaching of English is in fact provided

by a faculty comprising mainly native speakers of Vietnamese What is more, FELTE – previously part of the English Department – under University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi (ULIS, VNUH), is one of the leading and avant-garde English teaching institutions in Vietnam, with – among many others – the main aim of providing quality teachers of English for Vietnam On this ground, the researcher was motivated

to carry out the research entitled “Self-Efficacy of Native and Non-Native English Speaker

Teachers”, which aims to investigate the self-efficacy of NNESTs and to compare it with their

NEST counterpart at FELTE, ULIS, to see what factors affect their teaching and the effectiveness of their work

2 Aims of the study

This research aims to investigate the self-efficacy beliefs of NNESTs and to compare it with the self-efficacy beliefs of their NEST counterpart, and from the findings, to propose some context-specific suggestions for the betterment of professional development for NNESTs at ULIS-VNUH in particular and in Vietnam in general

3 Scope of the study

Within the scope of an MA thesis, the research will not cover every aspect of self-efficacy,

nor with all categories of teachers at ULIS, VNUH The study focuses on teacher self-efficacy,

among some other types of self-efficacy beliefs (Self-efficacy, 2011) In particular, the study

focuses on the self-efficacy of NNESTs and NESTs at FELTE, ULIS, VNUH It specifically

targets self-efficacy in the educational context

4 Methodology

i Research questions:

1) What are the self-efficacy of NNESTs at FELTE?

2) What are the self-efficacy of NESTs at FELTE?

3) What is the relationship between the self-efficacy of these two parties in terms of gender and teaching experience?

ii Participants:

34 non-native English speaker teachers working in the EFL English language teachers training (ELTT) program at VNUH and 6 native English speaker teachers involved with ELTT program at VNUH and several other ELTT universities and colleges in Vietnam were involved

in the study

iii Instrumentation:

The methodology of this research is mainly quantitative The study employs the Teacher Efficacy Beliefs Scale – Self developed by Dellinger et al (2008) to probe the self-efficacy beliefs of both native English speaker teachers and non-native English speaker teachers, and to analyse the correlation between the self-efficacy of these two parties

iv Data analysis

The collected data were categorised and quantitatively analysed Data from questionnaires were statistically analysed to find answers to the research questions 1, 2, 3

5 Significance of the study

On the basis of the statistical analyses of data, the self-efficacy of NNESTs and NESTs will emerge, and thus be compared to existing literature Then suggestions for better professional development and eventually even better teaching quality at ULIS, VNUH are proposed

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

his first chapter sheds light on the literature pertinent to the present study, i.e the theoretical background and the review of studies relevant to the topic of research

1.1 Review of literature related to Self-efficacy and Teacher Self-efficacy theories

1.1.1 Definition, roles, sources, and types of self-efficacy

Definition of self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is “the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations” (Bandura, 1995, p.2) It is “a context-specific assessment of competence to perform a specific task, a judgement of one's capabilities to execute specific behaviours in specific situations” (Pajares & Miller, 1994, p 194) In other words, self-efficacy is a “future-oriented belief” about the level of competence a person expects he or she will display in a given situation

Self-efficacy should be distinguished from other related self-constructs such as

“self-esteem”, “self-concept”, and “self-perception” For the purpose of this research, self-efficacy,

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sense of self-efficacy, or self-efficacy belief, used interchangeably, will adopt the above

definition

The Role of Self-Efficacy in human functioning

A person’s self-efficacy can greatly contribute to how they approach goals, tasks, and challenges (Cherry, 2011) Generally, people with a strong sense of self-efficacy: view challenging problems as tasks to be mastered; develop deeper interest in the activities in which they participate; form a stronger sense of commitment to their interests and activities; recover quickly from setbacks and disappointments Meanwhile, people with a weak sense of self-efficacy: avoid challenging tasks; believe that difficult tasks and situations are beyond their capabilities; focus on personal failings and negative outcomes; quickly lose confidence in personal abilities (Bandura, 1994) Bandura (1997) proposed that self-efficacy beliefs are

“powerful predictors of behaviour”

Sources of Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy beliefs can develop from four main sources: enactive or mastery

experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and physiological and emotional states

In other words, they are “performance attainments; vicarious experiences of observing the performances of others; verbal persuasion and allied types of social influences that one possesses certain capabilities; and physiological states from which people partly judge their capability, strength, and vulnerability” (Nolan, 2009)

Types of Self-efficacy

There are four main types of self-efficacy, i.e general self-efficacy, social self-efficacy,

academic self-efficacy, and teacher self-efficacy (Self-efficacy, 2011) General Self-Efficacy: the

global confidence in one’s coping ability across a wide range of demanding or novel situations

(Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995) Social Self-efficacy: an individual’s confidence in her/his ability

to engage in the social interactional tasks necessary to initiate and maintain interpersonal

relationships (Schwarzer & Knoll, 2007) Academic Self-efficacy: a student’s belief that he or she

can successfully engage in and complete course-specific academic tasks (Jimenez Soffa, 2006)

Teacher Self-Efficacy: one's perceived competence to deal with all demands and challenges that

are implied in teachers' professional life (Schwarzer & Hallum, 2008)

1.1.2 Self-efficacy and Social cognitive theory

Self-efficacy lies at the heart of Bandura’s social cognitive theory, which posits that an individual can acquire knowledge and develop personality through observing other people, with the environment, behavior, and personal factors – i.e cognition, affect, and biological events – all as the chief factors in influencing development

According to the social cognitive theory, individuals are more likely to perform tasks they believe they are capable of accomplishing and are less likely to participate in the ones which they feel less competent Thus, individuals’ beliefs in their competencies to accomplish specific tasks, i.e self-efficacy, affect the choices that individuals make and the courses of action they pursue, the effort they exert, their perseverance in front of impediment, and their resilience in the face of failure (Bandura, 1997)

The triadic reciprocal causation model

Bandura’s social cognitive theory holds the assumption that people are capable of human agency This human agency is the product of a dynamic interaction of personal, behavioral, and

environmental influences, resulting in a process called triadic reciprocal causation (Bandura,

1977, 1997, cited in Henson, 2001) The triadic reciprocal causation model is a multi-directional model suggesting that our behaviour is caused by multiple factors and behaviour can impact those factors reciprocally The model, describe in the figure below, is a function of three interrelated forces: environmental influences, our behaviour, and internal personal factors such

as cognitive, affective, and biological processes

Definition of teacher self-efficacy

According to Bandura (1977, 1997), teacher self-efficacy is a special type of self-efficacy Dellinger (2001), building from Bandura’s definition, conceptualized teachers’ self-efficacy as

“a belief system that one has concerning his/her self-perceived capabilities to organize and execute courses of action to acquire given levels of attainment in situation-specific teaching tasks.”

For the purpose of this study, definition from Dellinger (2001) will be adopted All the terms teachers’ sense of efficacy, self-efficacy of teachers, instructional efficacy, teachers’ efficacy beliefs, or teachers’ perceived efficacy can be used interchangeably Whereas the term

“teacher efficacy” will not be used since it is too often confused with teacher “effectiveness” (Shaughnessy, 2004)

The role of teacher self-efficacy

Bandura (1993) demonstrated that teachers’ self-efficacy can have influence on the environment they create in their classroom, their specific instructional practices as well as their orientation toward the educational process, and their student academic achievement In general,

teachers with a high sense of self-efficacy are confident that even the most difficult students can

be reached if they exert extra effort; e.g these teachers devote more time to academic learning in the classroom, provide help to students with difficulty learning, praise students’ accomplishment,

and create mastery experiences for their students On the other hand, teachers with lower

self-efficacy feel helpless in dealing with difficult and unmotivated students; e.g they spend more

time on non-academic pastimes, give up on students if they do not get quick results, and criticize students’ failures (Gibson & Dembo, 1984)

Factors that influence teacher self-efficacy

There are many variables which may influence teacher self-efficacy Akbari & Moradkhani

(2010) classified the variables under two broad categories, namely contextual and demographic

factors

Contextual factors refer to specific contextual and environmental variables such as the

principal’s leadership, the school’s climate, the colleagues, the students’ characteristics The

demographic factors include demographic variables such as teacher’s gender, age, experience,

and academic degree The focus of this study is to examine teacher perceived efficacy in relation

to age and gender For the purpose of this paper, the factors of teaching experience and gender

will be looked upon thoroughly

1.2 Demographic factors that affect teacher self-efficacy

1.2.1 Teacher self-efficacy and teaching experience

As previously mentioned, Bandura (1977, 1986) believes mastery experience is the most important source of self-efficacy, implying that success and accomplishment can develop a strong sense of efficacy; whereas, failure can weaken it Since throughout their years of teaching, teachers usually gain vast experience of successful and unsuccessful performances, this assumption has facilitated in-depth research into how teachers who have had different lengths of teaching time perceive their teaching efficacy (Karimvand, 2011)

According to Karimvand (2011) and Akbari & Moradkhani (2008), some studies have shown a positive correlation between years of experience and efficacy beliefs of teachers, in which seasoned teacher reported higher level of self-efficacy then their novice counterparts (Lin and Tsai, 1999; Liu et al., 2007; Wolters and Daugherty, 2007, cited in Karimvand, 2011) However, some studies have reported results which: (1) contradicted the ones reported above, (2) showed mixed results, or (3) showed no significant relationship between teacher’s years of experience and their efficacy beliefs (Woolfolk, 1990; Weinstein, 1988; Gorrell & Dharmadasa, 1994; Guskey, 1987, etc.) Therefore, it might be difficult to conclude that there is a similar direction regarding the relationship of the two variables, teacher perceived efficacy and teaching experience

1.2.2 Teacher self-efficacy and gender

Gender is another demographic variable that might influence teacher’s professional lives

On reviewing the studies which have focuses on the relationship between gender and teachers' sense of efficacy, a great number of discrepancies can be seen Imants and De Brabander (1996), using a modified version of the Teacher Efficacy Scale (TES), concluded that gender influences teachers’ self-efficacy More precisely, their results showed that male elementary teachers’ level

of efficacy beliefs for pupil-oriented and school-oriented tasks seemed to be higher than their female counterparts In contrast, both the work of Cheung (2006) and Karimvand (2011) found that female teachers have significantly more general efficacy than male teachers, while it is worth noting that female teachers in their studies were either generally older or had longer

teaching experience than male teachers Finally, some other studies, such as Ghaith and Shaaban (1999), Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2002), and Wilson et al (2004), showed that gender has no signification effect on teachers’ self-efficacy

Overall, there seems to be no consistent trend or general direction in which teaching experience, based on years of teaching, and gender might correlate with teachers’ efficacy beliefs

as some discrepancies and opposing observations still exist

1.3 Dimensions of teacher self-efficacy

Research on teacher self-efficacy has shown that this is a multi-dimensional constructs Although researchers in this particular niche area have developed and/or used different instruments, their findings have unanimously yielded common dimensions of teacher self-efficacy

In their study exploring dimensions of teacher self-efficacy and relations with strain factors, perceived collective teacher efficacy, and teacher burnout, Skaalvik & Skaalvik (2007) developed and factor analyzed the Norwegian Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale Their analysis supported the conceptualization of teacher self-efficacy as a multidimensional construct The authors discovered strong evidence for 6 separate but correlated dimensions of teacher self-efficacy: Instruction, Adapting Education to Individual Students' Needs, Motivating Students, Keeping Discipline, Cooperating With Colleagues and Parents, and Coping With Changes and Challenges

Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001, cited in Cheung 2008) developed their own Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale with 24 items, then extracted three variables, each with 8 items These three variables are named Efficacy for Instructional Strategies, Efficacy for Classroom Management and Efficacy for Student Engagement

Karimvand (2011), in a recent study on Iranian teachers’ self-efficacy used the questionnaire TEBS-Self (Teachers' Efficacy Beliefs System- Self) previously developed by Dellinger, Bobbett, Oliver, & Ellett (2008) The scale was factored into four components of Accommodating Individual Differences (AID), Positive Classroom Climate (PCC), Monitoring and Feedback for Learning (MFL), and Managing Learning Routines (MLR) Since the factor structure used by Dellinger et al (2008) and Karimvand (2011) appears to encompass all other dimensions of the construct of teacher self-efficacy employed by other researchers, it is also utilized in the current research which used the questionnaire developed by Dellinger et al (2008)

as well

1.4 Non-native English speaker teacher & Teacher self-efficacy

1.4.1 Non-native vs Native English speaker teacher

Since the early 1990’s the notion of native and non-native English-speaking teachers has emerged in the literature of the TESOL field (Brutt-Griffler, & Samimy, 1999; Davies, 1991; Medgyes, 1994; Phillipson, 1992, cited in Liu, 2009; Liu, 2009; Graddol, 2007) According to Liu (2009), many researchers have challenged the view that the native speaker (NS) is the ideal language teacher, claiming that non-native speakers (NNS) can be trained to gain abilities that are associated with NSs (i.e fluency, correct usage of idiomatic expressions, and knowledge about the cultural connotation of English) Also, as NNESTs themselves have gone through the

language learning process, they can more likely predict potential difficulties for their students, and know how to help them learn based on their own language learning experiences (Tang, 1997) This learning process of NNES teachers is, according to Phillipson (1992, in Liu, 2009), considered a “valuable quality” that NSs cannot emulate

However, the NNESTs have long endured what is called the inferiority complex; the belief

that they will never match the linguistics standards so valuable in their profession, such as a native U.S or U.K accent, which in turn will lead them to believe that their interlanguage, the knowledge of their L2, is perpetually inadequate Thus, holding the assumption that in order to meet the high expectations of their students and to prove themselves worthy of being in the profession, NNESTs must work harder than their NEST counterparts (Liu, 2009)

At this stage, there is an interesting question of whether NNESTs’ sense of efficacy, their beliefs in their capability to successfully handle a specific prospective teaching situation, is affected by this dichotomy of nativeness As Bandura (1993) have demonstrated, teachers’ self-efficacy can impact the environment teachers create in their classroom, their specific instructional practices, their orientation toward the educational process, and, subsequently, their students’ academic achievement Therefore, it is worthwhile to examine NNESTs’ efficacy beliefs in comparison with their NEST counterparts

1.4.2 Non-native English speaker teacher self-efficacy

The growing number of non-native English speaker teachers in EFL as well as ESL contexts around the world has raised so much interest in issues related to non-native English speaking teachers (NNEST) in the field of TESOL that a proliferation of papers, theses, dissertations, and publications has been dedicated to the topic However, studies on the the self-efficacy beliefs of NNESTs are few; of the available literature, work from researchers examining NNES teachers in the context of Iran can be observed (Eslami & Fatahi, 2008; Akbari & Moradkhani, 2010; Karimvand, 2011)

Eslami & Fatahi (2008), using a modified version of Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) and two sub-scales – self-reported proficiency and pedagogical strategies (Chacón, 2005, cited in Eslami & Fatahi, 2008), examined the self-efficacy beliefs of EFL NNESTs in Iranian in relation to their perceived English language proficiency and instructional strategies They found that the more efficacious the teachers felt, the higher their perceived level of English proficiency was and the more inclined they were to use communicative-based strategies

Akbari & Moradkhani (2010), who also used the TSES, examined 447 NNESTs from a single English institute in Tehran, Iran in terms of the possible relationships between teaching experience & academic degree, and teacher efficacy Their results showed that teacher experience had a positive relationship with NNESTs’ self-efficacy whereas teachers’ English related academic degrees did not have significant impacts on their efficacy beliefs

Karimvand (2011) in a similar strand with Akbari & Moradkhani (2010), explored Iranian NNESTs’ perceived efficacy relative to their teaching experience and gender, using the Teachers' Efficacy Beliefs System- Self scale (TEBS-Self) The results also showed that experienced teachers (with more than or equal to three and a half years of teaching) had significantly more

positive efficacy perceptions than teachers with less than or equal to three years of experience Also, the female teachers in Karimvand study were found to have “significantly higher self-efficacy than the male participants on the whole questionnaire and two components of it.”

In light of all the reviewed literature above, there is, in fact, much research which has been carried out to examine teacher efficacy from different angles; however, little has been done to investigate the perceived efficacy of NNESTs in EFL contexts in relation to the efficacy beliefs

of their NEST counterparts Thus, this research aims to investigate NNESTs’ efficacy beliefs in comparison with their NEST counterparts in the hope of bridging the research gap, reaching recommendations for the betterment of NNESTs, and providing the support they need to develop their mastery experiences, which in turn are the major sources of their perceived self-efficacy

1.5 The context of teaching at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Training, University of Languages and International Studies (FELTE, ULIS)

The Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (FELTE), which specialises in training teacher and interpreters/translators of English at the undergraduate level, is a faculty under ULIS, one of the most prestigious institutions in Vietnam for language teaching, learning, and research Regarding teaching staff, teachers at the FELTE, who are all Vietnamese NNESTs, are methodologically trained in ELT and are highly qualified in terms of English proficiency, linguistic competence – every teacher being recruited has to undergo English language tests & professional interviews – and academic degree – which the basic degree requirement for employment is an honours BA degree In addition, the faculty annually hires from 3 to 4 native-speaker teachers from the U.S., U.K., New Zealand, etc through ELIC, an organisation which recruits native English speaker teachers to teach English in Asia

At FELTE, demographically, the female teachers outnumber their male counterpart and most of the teachers are young with less than three years of experience This is possibly due to the fact that there are more female students pursuing ELT career in Vietnam, and FELTE recruitment policy of employing honours BA holders respectively

Regarding professional development, teachers at FELTE enjoy many opportunities for professional development, such as participating in departmental workshops, seminars, international conferences, annually conducting research in their field of interest, and most noticeably, joining FELTE mentoring program

1.6 How does this study fit into other research?

Having examined the relevant literature on the research topic, i.e teacher self-efficacy and NNESTs around the world and in the context of the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education (ULIS, VNUH), this section discusses how the present study fits into the area of investigation

In the first place, the present study seeks to find out the self-efficacy beliefs of both NNESTs and NESTs at the Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, ULIS, VNUH in relation to the demographic factors: teaching experience and gender This is in line with current trends of research in TESOL under the theme of teacher motivation and its subtheme, teacher self-efficacy Furthermore, as contended by Bandura (1993) and many others, teachers’ self-efficacy can impact the environment teachers create in their classroom, their specific

instructional practices, their orientation toward the educational process, and, subsequently, their students’ academic achievement Thus, examining NNESTs’ efficacy beliefs proves to be valuable in the field of TESOL in general, and in terms of teacher professional development in particular

Secondly, it appears that, so far, there has been little research on NNES teachers’ efficacy in EFL contexts in Vietnam in general, and at FELTE in particular Around the world, other research on teacher self-efficacy has mainly focused either on NESTs (e.g Tschannen-Moran, Woolfok Hoy, & Hoy, 1998; Paneque & Barbetta, 2005; Henson 2011) or NNESTs (e.g Chacón, 2005; Eslami & Fatahi, 2008; Akbari & Moradkhani, 2010; Karimvand, 2011), while the current research attempts to investigate both NNESTs and NESTs’ sense of self-efficacy in the hope of producing exhaustive data to the self-efficacy beliefs of these two parties In this way, the present study supplements those studies

Given the context-specific nature of the construct of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1995) and the scarcity of research in this significant area in Vietnam, the researcher was motivated to conduct the present study to contribute to the available knowledge about the place of teacher self-efficacy beliefs in ELT, in general, and EFL education in Vietnam, in particular More precisely, this study was conducted in order to explore possible effects of teaching experience and gender as well as their interaction effect on Vietnamese NNESTs' self-efficacy and NESTs’ self-efficacy,

in general, and its different dimensions as conceptualized by Dellinger, Bobbett, Dianne and Chad (2008)

To sum up, in light of the literature review, the current study on teacher self-efficacy at FELTE, ULIS, VNUH is worth doing as it is in line with current trends of study on self-efficacy beliefs of teachers around the world Furthermore, it is useful and beneficial to FELTE and English language teaching institutions alike as it will provide insights into NNES teachers’ sense

of efficacy and help further improve the quality of English teaching – learning and training of future NNES teachers

“non-native English speaker teacher” and “NNESTs’ self-efficacy It ended with a brief review

of related studies hence disclosed the research gap and justified the practical aims and objectives

of the present study

In the next chapter, the methodology for the investigation to find answers to the research questions set forth in this study will be presented

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

his chapter presents the methodology employed for data collection and analysis It first discusses the participants and sampling procedure of the study It closes with a detailed description of the instrumentation, the procedure of data collection and analysis; hence, justifies the reliability and validity of the whole study

2.0 Research questions

The current study sets out to find answers to the following research questions:

1 What is the self-efficacy of NNESTs?

2 What is the self-efficacy of NESTs?

3 What is the relationship between the self-efficacy of these two parties in terms of gender and teaching experience?

2.1 Sampling and Participants

2.1.1 Sampling procedures

The study employed a non-probability strategy for sampling as defined by Lund Research Ltd (2010) as it has to rely on the consent to participate of the subjects that is NESTs and NNESTs at FELTE The specific procedures employed was purposive sampling – to recruit both NNEST and NEST participants – and snowball sampling, i.e a technique for developing a research sample in which current study subjects recruit future subjects from among their acquaintances; thus, the sample group seems to grow like a rolling snowball (Eslami & Fatahi, 2008), to recruit more NESTs because of the relatively small number of NESTs at FELTE The unique nature of the sample and its impact on the results are further discussed in Chapter 3 where the demographic results are reported

2.1.2 Participants

The participants of the present study were 40 EFL teachers, among them 34 were NNESTs working at FELTE, ULIS, VNUH, and 6 NESTs working at FELTE and other English language institutions in Hanoi In general, their years of teaching experience ranged from less than 1 year

to more than 30 years The NNESTs had at least a BA TEFL or a BA in English language, translation, & interpretation The NEST counterpart all had relevant BA ELT academic degrees

or postgraduate TESOL certificates

2.2 Instrumentation

Among the different scales which measure teacher self-efficacy, this study adopts the Teachers’ Efficacy Beliefs System-Self (TEBS-S) developed by Dellinger et al (2008) According to Dellinger et al (2008), their scale had certain strengths compared to previously developed instruments They contended that their instrument was developed based on a conceptualisation of self-efficacy that is firmly grounded in Social Cognitive Theory In defining

“teacher self-efficacy”, they have tried to avoid confusing the construct of self-efficacy with other related and relatively more stable self-constructs such as self-esteem, self-concept, locus of control, and outcome expectancy Also, the context-specific nature of efficacy beliefs has been taken into consideration in their developing of the items in their instrument For the purpose of this study, three more questions were added to the questionnaire, probing responses to

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