Empowering educators: The interplay of self-efficacy and professional identity during challenging times
Year: 2024
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: With ever-increasing risks due to global disasters including the COVID-19, and continuous violent conflicts in various parts of the world, the education sector has had to embrace changes at a very high level of innovation. In actualization of these hardships, the constructs of teacher self-efficacy and professional identity have come up as some of the most important variables that can easily determine teachers’ capability to manage emergent situations. This article therefore explores the relationship between these two propositions more specifically concerning the consequences for teaching during crises. Teacher self-efficacy is the level of confidence that a teacher has in producing a favorable outcome for their students, while professional identity is the standards, perceptions, values, purposes, and history that shape the identity of a teacher. The article in question is devoted to the conceptions and significance of the mentioned notions and, while doing so, emphasizes on their co-dependency and synergy. Focus is placed on how crisis influences learning and the critical understanding of how teachers with high level of self-efficacy and professional work commitment demonstrate enhanced ability to manage changes and stress while embracing professional teaching responsibilities. Building on the idea of crisis teaching, this article also delves deeper into the relationships between self-efficacy, professional identity, and crisis teaching crucial for personal and professional growth through the factors that foster flexibility, perseverance, problem-solving strategies and entrepreneurship. Recommendations for increasing teacher self-efficacy and professional status are set out here, such as cultivating a conducive climate, fostering professional development and embracing mirroring and self-reflective practices. Furthermore, the article discusses ideas on the implementation of entrepreneurship education in teachers’ learning and professional experience and major opportunities, such as developing a mindset of growth, improving problem-solving, increasing the ability to cope with failures and changes, and learning leadership and innovation. Given the analysis of the coping patterns of self-efficacy and professional identity and their impact on the decision-making of teachers during crisis, this article offers useful information for strengthening the fulfilment of educators and the ways they can master adverse situations. This article provides a clear view and understanding of such important constructs and specifies the measures and ways to develop them and hence strengthening the education sector for adverse situations.
Author: Lubov Slutsky
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4405968854