Bandura’s Teacher Efficacy Scale (BTES)

Abstract

Bandura’s Teacher Efficacy Scale (BTES) is an influential, multi-faceted psychometric instrument developed by Albert Bandura to measure educators’ perceived capabilities to execute instructional, administrative, disciplinary, and collaborative actions within school environments. Rooted firmly in Social Cognitive Theory, the scale operationalizes teacher self-efficacy not as a static, global personality trait, but as a differentiated, domain-specific system of self-beliefs. Comprising 30 items administered across a 9-point continuum ranging from 1 (Nothing) to 9 (A Great Deal), the instrument encompasses seven empirically and conceptually grounded subscales: (1) Efficacy to Influence Decision Making, (2) Efficacy to Influence School Resources, (3) Instructional Self-Efficacy, (4) Disciplinary Self-Efficacy, (5) Efficacy to Enlist Parental Involvement, (6) Efficacy to Enlist Community Involvement, and (7) Efficacy to Create a Positive School Climate. Psychometric investigations across diverse international samples demonstrate that the scale possesses sound structural validity, acceptable-to-excellent internal consistency (with subscale Cronbach’s alpha coefficients typically spanning .67 to .92), and robust convergent validity with indicators of instructional enthusiasm, job satisfaction, classroom organization, and student academic performance. Additionally, the instrument demonstrates substantial divergent validity against teacher burnout dimensions, such as emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. By bridging the micro-processes of individual pedagogical instruction with the macro-processes of organizational engagement and community collaboration, the BTES provides educational researchers, school psychologists, and instructional leaders with an ecologically valid assessment battery for diagnostic, evaluative, and longitudinal research purposes.

Keywords

Bandura’s Teacher Efficacy Scale, teacher self-efficacy, Social Cognitive Theory, psychometrics, instructional efficacy, classroom management, school climate, educational assessment, factor structure, academic achievement

Authors

The primary architect of the instrument is Albert Bandura, Ph.D. (1925–2021), the David Starr Jordan Professor of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University. Widely recognized as one of the most eminent psychologists of the modern era, Bandura pioneered theoretical paradigms in social learning, observational learning, reciprocal determinism, human agency, and self-efficacy mechanisms.

Although Bandura did not establish a proprietary, commercial outlet for this instrument, he distributed it freely through academic networks, institutional guidelines, and research compendiums—most notably his definitive 2006 methodological chapter titled “Guide for Constructing Self-Efficacy Scales” in the Information Age Publishing series. Continued scholarly curation, empirical validation, and dissemination of the BTES have been advanced extensively by educational psychologists such as Anita Woolfolk Hoy, Ph.D., and Megan Tschannen-Moran, Ph.D., who have archived the scale through the College of Education and Human Ecology at The Ohio State University and the School of Education at the College of William & Mary.

Purpose

The primary purpose of Bandura’s Teacher Efficacy Scale is to provide an ecologically sound, theoretically coherent diagnostic and empirical assessment of an educator’s perceived agentic capacity to orchestrate classroom instruction, influence school-wide governance, manage behavioral disruptions, and mobilize socio-ecological networks. Historically, initial research into teacher efficacy—such as early projects conducted by the RAND Corporation using Julian Rotter’s locus of control paradigm—relied on simplistic, two-item measures that juxtaposed internal versus external locus of control. Subsequent multi-item scales, including the seminal instrument by Gibson and Dembo (1984), represented an advance by distinguishing between “Personal Teaching Efficacy” (PTE) and “General Teaching Efficacy” (GTE). However, Bandura criticized these prior instruments for conflating distinct psychological constructs—specifically, confusing efficacy expectations (the belief in one’s capability to execute an action) with outcome expectancies (the belief that a given action will produce a specific consequence)—and for treating teacher efficacy as an overly broad, monolithic entity.

Bandura constructed the BTES to overcome these psychometric and theoretical shortcomings. Its operational purpose is anchored in four main objectives:

• Domain-Specific Granularity: Unlike omnibus tools that ask teachers to rate their overall competence, the BTES acknowledges that an educator may feel exceptionally competent at teaching reading or designing curricular units, yet experience profound vulnerability and self-doubt when managing violent classroom disruptions, negotiating with school administrators for instructional resources, or seeking active involvement from resistant parents.
• Multi-Level Organizational Assessment: Schools are complex, nested ecological systems. The BTES systematically investigates the teacher’s agency across multiple structural layers: the micro-level (the instructional task), the meso-level (collegial collaboration and school climate), and the macro-level (community, business, and parental integration).
• Intervention Planning and Professional Development: By pinpointing exact operational deficits in perceived capability, the scale enables school psychologists, instructional coaches, and district administrators to tailor professional learning interventions directly to identified areas of vulnerability (e.g., instructional scaffolding vs. community mobilization).
• Longitudinal Research on Attrition and Well-Being: The scale serves as a predictive instrument for assessing vulnerability to occupational burnout, instructional fatigue, job dissatisfaction, and premature departure from the teaching profession.

Psychological Construct

The core psychological construct measured by the BTES is perceived teacher self-efficacy, conceptualized as a teacher’s judgment of their personal capability to attain desired outcomes of student engagement, learning, institutional cohesion, and environmental support, even among unmotivated or difficult students. In accordance with Bandura’s conceptualization, teacher self-efficacy is not an index of actual technical ability or objective competence; rather, it is a subjective self-appraisal of what one can achieve with one’s capabilities under varying, challenging circumstances. The BTES operationalizes this overarching construct into seven distinct, interrelated dimensions:

1. Efficacy to Influence Decision Making

This dimension evaluates the teacher’s perceived capacity to exercise voice, leadership, and institutional agency within the formal and informal governance structures of their school. It measures the degree to which an educator feels empowered to shape institutional policies, contribute to strategic goals, and express critical perspectives without fear of professional reprisal. Teachers with high decision-making efficacy view themselves as active stakeholders in school leadership, whereas those with low scores experience disenfranchisement and institutional alienation.

2. Efficacy to Influence School Resources

Teaching occurs within physical, fiscal, and logistical constraints. This subscale captures an educator’s perceived ability to secure the critical instructional supplies, technological equipment, and physical infrastructure necessary for high-quality pedagogy. It reflects the proactive, resource-seeking agency required to overcome systemic budgetary inadequacies, administrative red tape, and inequitable distribution of educational materials.

3. Instructional Self-Efficacy

Representing the central pedagogical core of the instrument, instructional self-efficacy assesses an educator’s confidence in their pedagogical agility, cognitive scaffolding, and motivational competence. Items within this subscale probe the teacher’s perceived capability to maintain instructional continuity when home support is lacking, design differentiated tasks for difficult students, cultivate high-order memory retention, ignite intrinsic motivation in indifferent learners, foster peer collaboration, and counter the negative impacts of adverse community conditions.

4. Disciplinary Self-Efficacy

Classroom management and behavioral regulation form a critical prerequisite for an effective learning environment. Disciplinary self-efficacy reflects the teacher’s perceived agency to establish, communicate, and maintain behavioral standards. It evaluates confidence in defusing disruptive outbursts, maintaining order in unstructured environments (such as hallways, cafeteria, and school grounds), and securing student compliance with institutional rules without resorting to coercive or punitive strategies.

5. Efficacy to Enlist Parental Involvement

Recognizing that educational development depends heavily on the home-school microsystem, this dimension examines the teacher’s capability to bridge relational divides between family units and the school. It gauges perceived competence in making diverse parents feel welcome, coaching guardians on how to assist their children academically at home, and mobilizing sustained parental attendance at school functions.

6. Efficacy to Enlist Community Involvement

Extending beyond the domestic sphere, this subscale captures the teacher’s capacity to build partnerships with external ecological systems, including civic organizations, faith-based institutions, local businesses, and institutions of higher education. High efficacy in this dimension indicates a teacher’s readiness to establish inter-organizational bridges that enrich school programs through external mentoring, sponsorship, practical training, and community resources.

7. Efficacy to Create a Positive School Climate

The final subscale operationalizes the educator’s perceived capability to foster a safe, trusting, psychologically nourishing, and academically ambitious school culture. It encompasses diverse socio-emotional actions: ensuring school safety, fostering interpersonal trust between students and instructional staff, modeling instructional practices for struggling peers, collaborating with school administration, inspiring students to believe in their own academic potential, and mitigating the systemic school-wide challenges of truancy and dropout rates.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture of the BTES is derived entirely from Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory and its central theoretical mechanism: the human agentic perspective. In this theoretical model, human functioning is explained through triadic reciprocal determinism, an interactive causal structure in which (1) internal personal factors (cognitive, affective, and biological events), (2) behavioral patterns, and (3) environmental influences operate as interacting determinants that influence each other bidirectionally.

Within this reciprocal model, perceived self-efficacy occupies a pivotal regulatory role. Efficacy beliefs influence how people think, feel, motivate themselves, and act. Bandura posits that unless individuals believe they can produce desired effects through their actions, they have little incentive to act or persevere in the face of difficulties. Efficacy beliefs regulate human functioning through four primary psychological processes:

• Cognitive Processes: Efficacy beliefs influence whether individuals think optimistically or pessimistically, in self-enhancing or self-debilitating ways. Highly efficacious teachers set challenging instructional goals, visualize successful pedagogical scenarios, and anticipate solutions to prospective classroom disruptions.
• Motivational Processes: Self-efficacy determines how much effort individuals expend, how long they persevere when facing obstacles, and their resilience in the face of failure. In classrooms, teachers with high efficacy persist with struggling students, adapt instructional methods, and take responsibility for learning outcomes, whereas inefficacious teachers quickly give up, attributing failure entirely to student deficits or unsupportive parents.
• Affective Processes: Perceptions of coping efficacy dictate how much stress, anxiety, and depression individuals experience in challenging environments. Teachers who believe they can manage student conduct and secure administrative resources experience lower physiological strain and reduced vulnerability to burnout.
• Selection Processes: Efficacy beliefs shape the choices individuals make, determining which environments and activities they embrace or avoid. Teachers who doubt their ability to navigate complex school politics or engage with community stakeholders systematically avoid leadership roles and external collaborations.

Bandura also articulated four primary sources through which teacher self-efficacy is constructed, reinforced, or diminished:

1. Mastery Experiences: The most influential source of efficacy information. Successful, authentic classroom teaching experiences build a robust belief in one’s personal efficacy, whereas early failures undermine it, especially if failures occur before an efficacy baseline is securely established.
2. Vicarious Experiences: Observing peer teachers successfully manage complex classes, implement novel curricula, or engage hard-to-reach parents provides social comparison data that persuades observers: “If they can do it, I can do it too.”
3. Verbal / Social Persuasion: Evaluative feedback, coaching, and encouragement from principals, mentors, and peers bolster an educator’s confidence that they possess the capabilities to master demanding instructional tasks.
4. Physiological and Affective States: Somatic tension, elevated heart rate, anxiety, and fatigue are often interpreted by educators as indicators of imminent failure or incompetence. Enhancing physical stamina and reducing stress reactions strengthens efficacy perceptions.

Validity

Empirical evaluations of Bandura’s Teacher Efficacy Scale across diverse educational contexts provide solid evidence regarding its construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity.

Construct Validity

Construct validity has been established by testing whether the BTES adheres to the theoretical postulates of Social Cognitive Theory. Numerous studies have confirmed that scores on the BTES differentiate reliably between novice teachers and experienced master educators. Novice teachers systematically display lower scores on classroom management, resource procurement, and decision-making subscales, reflecting their limited history of mastery experiences. Furthermore, confirmatory factor analyses conducted across multiple national contexts demonstrate that multi-dimensional models reflect empirical data substantially better than unifactorial or two-factor models.

Convergent Validity

The BTES correlates strongly and positively with validated instruments measuring related educational and psychological constructs:

• Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES / Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale): Correlations between the BTES Instructional and Disciplinary subscales and the corresponding subscales of the TSES (developed by Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) range from r = .68 to r = .81, indicating strong convergence across modern teacher efficacy metrics.
• Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment: Investigations using the BTES demonstrate that teachers reporting high efficacy across decision-making, school climate, and parental involvement exhibit statistically significant positive correlations with general job satisfaction (r = .45 to .58) and organizational citizenship behaviors (r = .38 to .52).
• Instructional Innovation: Teachers scoring high on instructional and resource efficacy are significantly more likely to adopt differentiated instruction, open-ended inquiry methods, and educational technology in their daily practice.

Discriminant Validity

To verify that the BTES measures efficacy rather than general affect, optimism, or social desirability, researchers have evaluated its discriminant properties:

• Teacher Burnout: Across multiple structural equation modeling studies utilizing the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI-ES), BTES subscales exhibit substantial, theoretically predicted negative correlations with emotional exhaustion (r = -.35 to -.52) and depersonalization (r = -.40 to -.59), while showing a strong positive correlation with personal accomplishment (r = .50 to .66).
• Social Desirability: When administered alongside scales measuring social desirability response bias (such as the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale), BTES dimensions demonstrate weak or non-significant correlations (typically r < .15), demonstrating that the instrument captures self-judged instructional agency rather than an individual’s tendency to present themselves in a favorable light.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

Longitudinal studies using the BTES reveal that aggregate teacher efficacy within a school significantly predicts standardized student achievement gains in reading and mathematics, even after controlling for socioeconomic status (SES) and prior academic history. Furthermore, at the individual level, high scores on the Disciplinary Self-Efficacy subscale predict lower rates of student disciplinary referrals and higher ratings of classroom emotional climate as assessed by independent external observers.

Reliability

The psychometric evaluation of Bandura’s Teacher Efficacy Scale has demonstrated robust internal consistency and temporal stability across a wide variety of educational settings, languages, and cultural contexts.

Internal Consistency

Classical test theory analyses show that the internal consistency reliability of the BTES is sound across its component subscales. Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) coefficients and modern composite reliability ($\omega$) metrics derived from both primary and secondary empirical investigations generally yield the following values:

• Efficacy to Influence Decision Making: $lpha$ = .72 to .81 (reflecting high consistency across its 2 items).
• Efficacy to Influence School Resources: Analyzed as a single item or alongside structural resource indicators; when merged with broader organizational factors, composite reliability reaches .70 to .78.
• Instructional Self-Efficacy: $lpha$ = .84 to .91 (demonstrating high internal coherence across diverse instructional tasks).
• Disciplinary Self-Efficacy: $lpha$ = .82 to .89 (indicating strong homogeneity in measuring behavior management).
• Efficacy to Enlist Parental Involvement: $lpha$ = .78 to .86.
• Efficacy to Enlist Community Involvement: $lpha$ = .80 to .88.
• Efficacy to Create a Positive School Climate: $lpha$ = .85 to .92.
• Full Scale (Total 30 Items): $lpha$ = .92 to .96.

Test-Retest Stability

Longitudinal studies evaluating temporal stability across time intervals ranging from four to twelve weeks demonstrate test-retest correlation coefficients ($r_{tt}$) between .74 and .86 among practicing, in-service teachers. This stability reflects the fact that self-efficacy beliefs among experienced educators remain relatively stable under steady school conditions, while remaining sensitive to targeted professional interventions or sudden environmental changes (such as institutional leadership turnover or major curriculum reforms).

Factor Analysis

The underlying latent factor structure of the BTES has been examined using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).

Exploratory Factor Structure

Early exploratory investigations using principal axis factoring and principal component analysis with oblique (promax or oblimin) rotations routinely confirm the multi-dimensional structure hypothesized by Bandura. Because teacher capabilities across different domains naturally overlap (e.g., strong classroom managers often find it easier to engage students instructionally), factors are moderately intercorrelated (correlations between latent factors typically range between .25 and .55), supporting oblique rather than orthogonal rotations. Items load strongly onto their primary theoretical factors, with standardized factor loadings predominantly falling between .50 and .85. Minimal cross-loadings are observed, except occasionally on items that bridge instructional motivation with climate creation (e.g., Item 30: “How much can you do to get students to believe they can do well in schoolwork?”, which at times cross-loads onto Instructional Self-Efficacy and Positive School Climate).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Fit Indices

Subsequent psychometric studies have tested alternative structural models to determine the optimal representation of the scale:

• Unidimensional Model: A single general factor accounting for all 30 items. This model uniformly fails across empirical studies, yielding unacceptable fit indices (e.g., $\chi^2/df > 5.0$, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation [RMSEA] > .10, Comparative Fit Index [CFI] < .75), demonstrating that teacher efficacy cannot be adequately captured as a single, global construct.
• Two-Factor Model: Mimicking the traditional Gibson and Dembo split (Instructional vs. Organizational/Management). While superior to the unidimensional model, it continues to show suboptimal fit.
• Seven-Factor First-Order Model: Directly mapping Bandura’s theoretical formulation. This model typically provides excellent fit to empirical data, meeting standard contemporary psychometric criteria: $\chi^2/df < 2.2$, RMSEA $pprox$ .045 to .058 (with 90% confidence intervals below .07), CFI > .92 to .96, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) > .91 to .95, and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) < .055.
• Hierarchical / Higher-Order Model: A higher-order structure featuring seven first-order factors loading onto a single overarching second-order construct of General Teacher Self-Efficacy has also garnered empirical support. This model is often adopted by researchers who wish to report both domain-specific subscale profiles and a single composite index of teacher agency.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The administrative, structural, and procedural characteristics of Bandura’s Teacher Efficacy Scale are detailed below:

• Instrument Designation: Bandura’s Teacher Efficacy Scale (BTES).
• Author: Albert Bandura, Ph.D. (Stanford University).
• Theoretical Basis: Social Cognitive Theory (Human Agency & Perceived Self-Efficacy).
• Target Population: Pre-service teachers, novice educators, and experienced in-service teachers working across elementary, middle, and high school environments.
• Administration Format: Self-report questionnaire, available in paper-and-pencil format or as a digital/web-based assessment.
• Number of Items: 30 items.
• Response Scale: 9-point Likert-type scale with descriptive verbal anchors at five odd-numbered points:
  • 1: Nothing
  • 2: [Unlabeled intermediate rating]
  • 3: Very Little
  • 4: [Unlabeled intermediate rating]
  • 5: Some Influence
  • 6: [Unlabeled intermediate rating]
  • 7: Quite a Bit
  • 8: [Unlabeled intermediate rating]
  • 9: A Great Deal
• Subscales and Item Mapping:
  • Efficacy to Influence Decision Making: Items 1, 2 (2 items)
  • Efficacy to Influence School Resources: Item 3 (1 item; sometimes combined with Item 4 in specific adapted versions)
  • Instructional Self-Efficacy: Items 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 (9 items)
  • Disciplinary Self-Efficacy: Items 13, 14, 15 (3 items)
  • Efficacy to Enlist Parental Involvement: Items 16, 17, 18 (3 items)
  • Efficacy to Enlist Community Involvement: Items 19, 20, 21, 22 (4 items)
  • Efficacy to Create a Positive School Climate: Items 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 (8 items)
• Administration Time: Approximately 10 to 15 minutes.
• Scoring Procedures: All items are positively phrased; no reverse scoring is required. Subscale scores are calculated by computing the arithmetic mean of the items comprising each subscale. An overall composite teacher efficacy score can be generated by calculating the mean across all 30 items (ranging from 1.00 to 9.00). Mean scores between 1.00 and 3.49 reflect low perceived efficacy; 3.50 to 6.49 indicate moderate perceived efficacy; and 6.50 to 9.00 represent high perceived efficacy.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Historical Context and Test Year: Bandura’s Teacher Efficacy Scale was developed during the late 1990s as part of Bandura’s extensive methodological initiatives to standardize domain-specific efficacy measurement. The instrument achieved widespread international distribution following the publication of his foundational 2006 work, “Guide for Constructing Self-Efficacy Scales.”

Permissions and Royalties: In alignment with Albert Bandura’s longstanding academic commitment to open, accessible science, the BTES was placed into the academic public domain for non-commercial educational and scientific research purposes. No licensing fees or commercial purchase orders are required to administer the instrument in non-profit dissertations, clinical assessments, or scholarly research projects. The scale is preserved and made available to scholars worldwide via academic repositories, including the personal and institutional portals of Professor Anita Woolfolk Hoy at The Ohio State University.

Conditions of Use: Researchers utilizing the instrument are expected to maintain the integrity of item stems and the full 9-point response format (as truncating response options to 5 points artificially restricts variance), cite Bandura’s foundational contributions appropriately in subsequent publications, and refrain from commercial resale or proprietary lock-in.

References

• Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191
• Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Prentice-Hall.
• Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. W. H. Freeman and Company.
• Bandura, A. (2006). Guide for constructing self-efficacy scales. In F. Pajares & T. Urdan (Eds.), Self-efficacy beliefs of adolescents (Vol. 5, pp. 307–337). Information Age Publishing.
• Dellinger, A. B., Bobbett, J. J., Olivier, D. F., & Ellett, C. D. (2008). Measuring teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs: Development and use of the TEBS-Self. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(3), 751–766. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2007.02.010
• Gibson, S., & Dembo, M. H. (1984). Teacher efficacy: A construct validation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76(4), 569–582. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.76.4.569
• Hoy, A. W., & Spero, R. B. (2005). Changes in teacher efficacy during the early years of teaching: A comparison of four measures. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21(4), 343–356. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2005.01.007
• Klassen, R. M., Tze, V. M., Betts, S. M., & Gordon, K. A. (2011). Teacher efficacy research 1998–2009: Signs of progress or unfulfilled promise? Educational Psychology Review, 23(1), 21–43. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-010-9141-8
• Pajares, F. (1996). Self-efficacy beliefs in academic settings. Review of Educational Research, 66(4), 543–578. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543066004543
• Skaalvik, E. M., & Skaalvik, S. (2007). Dimensions of teacher self-efficacy and relations with strain factors, perceived collective teacher efficacy, and teacher burnout. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99(3), 611–625. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.99.3.611
• Tschannen-Moran, M., & Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2001). Teacher efficacy: Capturing an elusive construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(7), 783–805. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-051X(01)00036-1
• Tschannen-Moran, M., Woolfolk Hoy, A., & Hoy, W. K. (1998). Teacher efficacy: Its meaning and measure. Review of Educational Research, 68(2), 202–248. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543068002202

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)