Subjects

Subjects were eighteen undergraduate music majors at a southern university who were between twenty and twenty-one years old. The setting was an internship program that provides instruction in stringed instruments to community children while providing teaching experience to the university students. University students are selected for the program based on their entrance audition and interest in teaching.

The average length of teaching experience prior to the beginning of data collection was less than one semester. The script, which was read by graduate students prior to each administration of the Teacher Efficacy Scale, assured them the results of the study would have no influence on any other aspect of their teacher education program. Summary results were made available to all subjects during the following academic year.

Preservice teachers were given the option of participating in the study. At the time of the study, there were twenty-five teachers in the community program. Five freshman assistants and two graduate students were eliminated from the subject pool due to the disparity in their experience and teaching situation. The remaining eighteen all elected to participate. Although eighteen subjects is admittedly a small sample size, a larger group would have been difficult to assemble. The university that sponsors that lab setting where the study took place has one of the largest available enrollment of undergraduate string education majors.

The preservice teachers have the opportunity to teach either private lessons, group classes, or both classes and lessons. Children enroll in the program during the fall and the majority range from age eight to age twelve. The class sizes consisted of between 11-15 students. Students are either first or second year string players and have a one hour class per week. The classes remained stable for the three data collection points (fall, winter, spring). Students have a half hour lesson each week. The average length of experience of the private students was 2.8 years. Parental involvement was required only to transport students to the lessons as part of their participation in the intact program. The parents were aware of the study, but knew their children were not the principal focus.

If the preservice teacher taught both a class and lessons, tapes were made of one example of both, and the preservice teacher had the opportunity to self-evaluate both experiences (total of twenty-five teaching episodes). This was considered appropriate since their perception of their teaching in both settings was hypothesized to affect their self-efficacy. Correlations between the data set of twenty-five episodes (one class and/or lesson from each preservice teacher) and from the set of eighteen episodes (one episode per teacher) were high (r = .82). When comparisons were made of the data from the Teacher Efficacy Scale and from the Music Teaching Observation Form, only one teaching episode was used (sixteen private lessons and 2 classes).

One study (Keraus, 1973) compares the performance of students in Suzuki group classes and students in private lessons and found that students performed at a similar level. Since there were no available data on the differences in novice teaching of group and private lessons, experienced educators who also viewed and evaluated the video tapes were consulted about possible differences in the teaching behaviors between private lessons and classes. Their opinion was that although the behavior of students may differ in a group setting, the teaching behaviors at this novice level were not noticeably different.

Measurement of Teacher Efficacy

The Music Teaching Observation Form was adapted from the instrument developed by Sung (1982) who examined the professional literature for the teaching behaviors most associated with classroom effectiveness appropriate to field experiences at the sophomore level. Sung utilized items from Doane (1981) who compiled a list of competencies that can be expected for preservice teachers in early field experiences.  Sung asked experienced teacher-educators to review items for "degree of importance, appropriateness of operational definitions, accessibility, importance at sophomore level" (1982). Kelly (1984) used the form developed by Sung, but adapted it for peer teaching situations. In the Kelly study, the final form was given to three music teacher educators who agreed on its appropriateness for preservice teachers. The version used in  the current study was adapted from the version by Kelly.

The Music Teaching Observation Form was submitted both to an experienced teacher educator and experienced school orchestra director for review. They suggested some minor wording changes. In addition, since persistence and high student awareness are characteristics found in teachers with a high degree of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1982; Ashton, 1984), the following items were added: "Persists when student(s) have difficulty with concept" and "Monitors student learning." In preparation for self-evaluation of videotapes, preservice teachers practiced using the Music Teaching Observation Form. Sample teaching episodes of an experienced teacher and a graduate student were viewed and after marking the form, various points raised by the preservice teachers were discussed.

Procedures

At the conclusion of the study, the preservice teachers had evaluated their self-efficacy three times (fall, winter, spring). In addition, preservice teachers were videotaped in both classes and lessons three times during two academic semesters (fall, winter, spring). Taped episodes were fifteen minutes long. Preservice teachers viewed the tapes and rated themselves in varying degrees of effectiveness on a 6 point Likert-type scale.

Three experienced educators were asked to view the tapes at the conclusion of videotaping and preservice teachers' self-assessments. This was intended as a check on the accuracy of the preservice teachers' self-evaluations and as another measure of changing levels of teaching effectiveness. The three educators had an average of seventeen years teaching experience in elementary, middle school, and high school orchestra programs. They were recommended by colleagues in both the public school and university communities for providing a consistently high standard of stringed instrument instruction.

The experienced educators were trained in the use of the instrument with the same tapes that were used for training the preservice teachers. After the training session, the overall agreement was moderately high (r = .79). Operational definitions were devised by the principal investigator, an experience teacher educator and experienced school educator. For the following items, operational definitions from Hamann and Baker (1996) were utilized:

One of the items that had a significant change in the Teachers Efficacy Scale was: "I am very limited in what I can achieve because a student's home environment is a large influence on his/her achievement." Even though generalizablity is limited because of the small sample size, implications were that after two semesters of teaching experience, more preservice teachers believed they were somewhat limited in their personal power over the home environment than did at the beginning of the study. The other item that demonstrated significance was "The influence of a student's home experiences can be overcome by good music instruction." At the final administration of the Teacher Efficacy Scale (spring), more preservice teachers agreed with the statement or believed the influences of students' home experiences can be overcome with good music instruction.

Although these two items appeared to be in conflict, indications were preservice teachers were changing their views about their personal efficacy and their teaching efficacy. Item #9 evaluated the personal-external dimension of self-efficacy. Item #15 was intentionally worded by Gusky & Passaro (1994) to evaluate the teaching-internal dimension of self-efficacy. The results seem to imply that preservice teachers' belief in the influence of teaching was higher while their belief in their personal influence was somewhat diminished. One interpretation could be that these preservice teachers were becoming more realistic about what can be controlled through music instruction. The videotapes provided a visual example of their actual (versus perceived) teaching performance and may have had an effect on levels of efficacy. Persistence, which remained stable throughout the study, may be one reason why ratings of teaching improved during the length of the study, even though the preservice teachers became less confident, or perhaps more realistic in their personal beliefs.


Pearson correlation coefficients were significant between preservice teachers' and the three experienced educators' ratings for the teaching episodes for the fall. The summed values provided evidence of preservice teachers having rated themselves less favorably throughout the study than the experienced educators, but the differences were greater in the winter and spring. In an examination of non-significant trends, there was an average difference of only eight percentage points between the preservice teachers and the experienced educators. Items that were more positively rated by the experienced educators were associated with behaviors that may more readily change with teaching experience, including monitoring student learning, allocating time, effective pace, modulating voice and speaks clearly and understandably. Some items that were related less favorably may require more than two semesters of experience to master such as incorporating musicianship, enthusiasm, and a sense of humor. These would be expected once a higher degree of comfort with basic teaching skills is acquired and preservice teachers may more accurately rate those particular behaviors with more experience. Future research with a larger sample size may yield significant results for more items on this instrument.

Findings of the current study are consistent with previous writing in teacher efficacy. Teachers learn to make realistic judgments about their effectiveness in certain contexts (Guskey, 1994) and preservice teachers do have fluctuations in efficacy as a result of their preservice experiences (Kushner, 1993). However, findings of this study are somewhat different than Housego (1992) who found new teachers gained confidence in their personal power, but their belief in the power of teaching was diminished. Denham & Michael (1981) stated the five antecedents to teacher efficacy were teacher education, teacher experience, system variables, personal variables and causal attributions. The current study was able to study efficacy beliefs in comparison to only one of these antecedents, teacher experience.

Slightly declining levels of self-efficacy do not appear to have an effect on preservice teachers' improved levels of teaching effectiveness. The lower levels could be interpreted as a correction in initially inflated levels of self-efficacy. If preservice teachers are aware of which elements of student achievement can be improved through good teaching and which are the domain of the home environment, they may be more realistic in their goal setting and less inclined to become discouraged when in a school setting. However, they should be encouraged to strive for excellence in teaching in spite of the frustrations they may encounter.

The use of videotape with a behavior checklist is an effective method of teacher education. Preservice teachers improved in their teaching skills after self-observation and practice. This is well documented in the music education literature (Price, 1993; Cassidy, 1993; Colwell, 1998). Music teacher education programs should incorporate self-assessment (videotape and behavioral checklists) for preservice teachers.

The quality of persistence could be related to improvement in ratings of teaching effectiveness and items relating to persistence remained high and stable for the duration of the study. Indications were preservice teachers had a conviction that their "teacher training program and/or experience" had given them "the necessary skills to be an effective teacher." This could be an indication that settings that provide young teachers with an opportunity to have teaching experiences are a worthwhile addition to a teacher education program. If, during their teacher education program, preservice teachers can participate in a young person's musical education, the intrinsic rewards of teaching may sustain them through the temporary doubts they may encounter. It may also assist them in the situations they will encounter as a string teacher in school settings: building and maintaining a program, developing community awareness, recruitment along with all of the musical rewards and challenges.

Further Research

In addition to replication within a larger sample, it would be desirable to study self-efficacy in preservice and in-service teachers and its relationship with observed levels in their students achievement. Previous studies (Walker, 1992) have shown student achievement and self-efficacy to be related. Studying changing levels of student achievement along with changing levels of efficacy might be one step in answering the question of which comes first.

Another useful study would be to assess levels of efficacy of the preservice teachers in the current study after some experience in a public school setting. Some previous studies have shown that practicing teachers are less concerned with self and more concerned with parents, students and administrators. The preservice teachers in this investigation maintained their persistence and belief in the power of teaching throughout the study. It would be useful to determine if these beliefs would remain stable through experience in a school music classroom.