PERCEIVED SELF-EFFICACY: TEACHERS’ PERSONAL RESOURCES TO WORK ON RESILIENCE IN PRIMARY EDUCATION

The answers found in the four categories described above are presented below.

3. PRESENTATION OF TEACHER’S MAIN ANSWERS BY CATEGORY

In general, we find both affirmative and negative answers in both types of schools (state and grant-aided). However, the perceived lower self-efficacy of the teachers in state schools compared to grant-aided schools stands out significantly. In the grant-aided schools, teachers justified their greater self-efficacy by referring to a greater extent to the importance of factors such as previous experience, vocation, motivation to help, personal work and religious values.

3.1. Perception of high self-efficacy

In relation to the category “perception of high self-efficacy based on personal variables” we observed a very notable difference between the teachers of state and grant-aided schools, with quotes in this category being much more frequent in grant-aided schools. Indeed, the only quote from a state school that belongs to this category was more of a joke and perhaps ironic: “Well, we’re machines, as you’ll find out, we can do anything (Laughter)” (2:31_69 – 70). In grant-aided schools, statements such as the following give us an idea of this perception of high self-efficacy: “I see myself as trained, trained because...because of my personal situation, because of personal situations I’ve experienced, I’ve had to get ahead, in very complicated moments of my life, I’ve had to see the positive side, where there wasn’t much to hold on to, so I think I’m a person who can contribute” (3:23_32). This confidence in one’s abilities to work on resilience is also intuited in statements such as: “I think we’re ready! I feel ready!” (26:24_62).

Similarly, teachers stressed that this high self-perception is based on practices that, without knowing it implicitly, lead them to explicitly work on resilience in their classrooms: “I really do think now, without having had any type of training, that I’ve been working constantly on it because as I said before, I have a day of tutoring in my schedule, but I really do tutor constantly” (5:10_29).Also along the same lines: “Deep down, even if we didn’t put a name to all this we’ve been doing whenever we’ve been talking about these things, in the end, the whole part of emotional intelligence, from my point of view, is the resilience” (29:32_103). Similarly, statements such as “I think so, because without having any specific training on resilience, I’m constantly working on it, if on top of that I train, perfect” (5:12_31) and “In the end it’s true that each one contributes from their harvest and from our experiences, and our reality, but it never hurts” (10:49_73) give an account of it.

Finally, in relation to the perception of high self-efficacy, we noted a humble position with respect to it because although in their statements the teachers highlighted a high level, they also stated they needed training in this regard: “I consider myself a resilient person, so I think I could transmit or help a pupil develop that skill but, at the same time, it never hurts for someone to lend me a hand or teach me how to do it better” (6:15_33); “Honestly, it sounds a little humble, but I think so because in fact I think I’m showing it a little bit, at least I have it in mind, we have it in mind” (12:25_49); “I feel trained, but I wouldn’t mind receiving more, obviously” (12:29_54); “We’ve been training for many years now and the input we’ve received from the first moment here at Camp Joliu has been to train, to open up, to learn, I don’t think it’s something to shout about, but I think we have a high mark in this aspect, I would dare say” (15:28_55). Lastly, there was an explicit request for “specific training on resilience to be able to think and to be able to be aware of things that you already do, what you do have is life, and things are not as you want them to be, as you would like them to be, so there you have training, come on, can’t you see?” (20:31_65).

With regard to high self-efficacy, it is noteworthy that the teachers’ statements point to self-efficacy perceived as a group and not so much individually. This is illustrated by the fact that they mentioned personal factors, many of them shaped by belonging to a teaching group. On the one hand, teachers control their personal activity, but on the other, also their group activity, thus creating a perception of collective efficacy (Salanova et al., 2011). The relationship between perceived group self-efficacy and group performance is positive, as mentioned in a meta-analysis (Stajkovi et al., 2009, cited by Salanova et al., 2011), thus demonstrating that efficacy beliefs (cognition, affect and motivational regulation mechanisms) influence how people feel, how much effort they put into their actions and how much they must persevere to overcome obstacles and how resilient they are in the face of adversity (Gratacós et al., 2021; Fathi & Saeedian, 2020).

In summary, self-efficacy beliefs, according to Bandura (1993), influence how people feel, finding that those who have a higher self-efficacy belief experience less negative affect, as well as lower rates of anxiety and depression in their experience. According to Bandura (1993), positive affect is not only an antecedent of self-efficacy beliefs, but also a consequence. Consistent with this, the broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 2001) assumes that there are reciprocal relationships between positive affect and personal resources such as self-efficacy beliefs; in other words, that positive emotions appear to expand the repertoire of actions and thoughts. Research suggests a positive impact of emotions on personal resources insofar as these momentary experiences and positive emotions can expand psychological resources and start a spiral that produces emotional well-being in the person (Salanova et al., 2011). All this places the emphasis on encouraging teachers to train and support these dimensions of cognition, affect and self-regulation not only in the personal sphere but also in the group sphere (Gratacós et al., 2021).

3.2. Perception of low self-efficacy

In relation to the category “perception of low self-efficacy”, the answers revolve around the lack of training and resources on the subject, both from a theoretical and practical point of view: “I consider myself to be quite green, I’ve never bothered to go into this topic, what we know are things that have come from our work as teachers or from our previous training, but we are very, very, very green, surely listening to some of the experts or people who’ve worked on this topic we’re going to learn a lot because, you know, I consider myself to be super, super green” (2:37_80); “Right now I can’t teach something I don’t know, it would be as if they were my children, but academically I’m not capable” (25:43_69); “One of my students has suffered a very traumatic event and is in a bad way, and I’m completely lost saying ‘and how do I help this poor creature?’, I mean yes, totally yes, right. But how? I don’t know, and I’m also searching for ‘how can I help them?’” (4:3_19);“The more you know, the more you know that you know less” (Laughter) (13:19_44 – 45); yes, it’s true that I feel limited, I could say things in favour, one thing in favour is that I already have a few years’ experience, that I’m a mother, that I have teenage children (19 and 16 years old), which is great proof of resilience…(Laughter). I’ve been working in primary for several years now, above all I would also tell you about all the teamwork with my colleagues” (13:20_46 – 48);“I’m a teacher, I mean, I’m not a psychologist, I’m not a therapist, so, of course, I’m limited in certain things (13:32_58); “I would have to say no, perhaps, because training them is giving them advice” (16:21_106); “I would say that I’m not very well trained” (18:31_60).

At a cognitive level, those people who perceive themselves to be less self-efficacious quickly activate mechanisms to anticipate problems and obstacles over those who have a strong sense of self-efficacy. It could be stated that, in general, the perception of self-efficacy influences the perception of behavioural coping strategies in the face of stress (Daniilidou et al., 2020), avoidance behaviours, the weakening of the sense of control, the anticipation of inefficacy, achievement and intrinsic interest (Bandura, 1993), motivation, learning and self-regulation (Schunk & Pajares, 2009) as well as resignation in the face of experiences of loss. This last point is interesting regarding the issue that concerns us: resilience in education. Significantly, teachers who report low levels of self-efficacy in the face of a negative experience would activate fewer adaptive coping strategies, and this in the school setting could lead to inadequate educational modelling for their pupils as resilient examples and an avoidant management of academic failures found in the school context. Therefore, generating educational resources that provide help especially for this sector of teachers who perceive themselves as less self-efficacious could lead to greater well-being for their pupils (Fathi & Saeedian, 2020; Gratacós et al., 2021; Razmjoo & Ayoobiyan, 2019).

3.3. Teachers express doubts about their self-efficacy

In relation to the category “explicit doubts about their self-efficacy”, teachers expressed doubts about their degree of preparation, showing an ambivalent position: “I don’t know if I’m prepared or not, I’m not sure, I haven’t thought about it, what I think is that my will is to help the students, whoever they are and in the best possible way; and I think that resilience is nothing more than a bit of common sense based on your own experiences, your own situations, which may or may not be hard, and based on experience, having done many, many courses and seeing how you’ve acted at some point” (19:36_67); “Ready to receive the training? Very much so. (Laughter).But to start applying it directly... well, we’ve talked about it a few times, but to work on it like this... or maybe we realize that we’re already working on some things without calling them resilience” (22:15_46 – 48); “My knowledge and baggage is not the same as when you have external advice, the view from the outside is always very different” (23:22_48); “I think that because of what I understood as resilience, I try to put it into practice, but of course, maybe I lack this base that you mention to have the foundations and truly say I’m doing well or whether I need to change something ” (28:39_82);“Well, I don’t know to what extent trained, but willing yes, because it’s true that many times we fall short in certain areas of knowledge or ways of dealing with certain matters that are really quite delicate and well, well, in the end we end up going to the orientation department or to the psychologists or others, because we don’t know or use the right tools, of course, I mean, above all we don’t want to do more harm to them than they’ve already had, so we’re kind of stuck, so I’m telling you, I’m delighted, let’s go” (4:8_38).

In general, although the teachers expressed doubts regarding teachers' perceived self-efficacy, their statements reveal a desire to learn, with high expectations about the results and the value of what they learn. In this regard, people with high expectations would set goals, evaluate their progress and decide which is the most appropriate strategy to learn adaptively. They are also people who pay attention to the task and avoid distraction, create work environments that facilitate learning, take the necessary material and equipment, work hard and persist in overcoming difficulties, ask for external help, make adequate use of time, keep a record of completed tasks and what remains to be done, maintain a positive attitude towards learning and are strategic (Schunk & Mullen, 2012). Taking this into consideration, in this category we would have teachers who, although they perceive themselves to be poorly prepared to work on resilience with their students, are very open to training in resilience and reflect an appropriate attitude to do so.

3.4. Unspecified perception of self-efficacy

Finally, the category “unspecified perception of self-efficacy” refers to aspects related to self-efficacy but that do not fit into the previous categories (high, low, with doubts). In their answers, the teachers mainly alluded to personal variables (willingness to help pupils, complaints about work overload, experiences, religious values, vocation...). The results may suggest that they have a misleading concept of resilience, one that is linked to others such as the desire to support their pupils in suffering or in growth. These personal variables can be seen in statements such as: “Teachers throughout our professional career are subject to resilience, in other words, we do it daily because we know during the morning or the month or the year, we have it programmed but there can always be a problem in class or a problem outside at home, or a problem in the neighbourhood, a personal problem of our own, which helps us to...” (1:25_41); “I think that to be able to work with it you have to be very well inside and this doesn’t always happen and, besides, I’ve been at this school for many years and it was always said that here, above all, you have to be very well, very stable outside, because many times you leave and take it home, and then everything is like a never-ending spiral. You have to be very calm. I think that it’s impossible to always be well, I mean, more than always being well and having many skills, I think you have to be aware of how you are at that moment. For example, today I’m having a bad day and I notice it, because the whole class, if I’m “feeling off”, as they say, the whole class notices” (27:31_92 – 93); “Be very aware of what moment you are in so that you know what tasks or what help you can give at that moment. It’s happened to all of us, I’m aware that at this moment I can’t solve it, well, who knows, I ask Fran for help, and perhaps he at that moment has more patience to talk or is more open or…I don’t know...or he hasn’t experienced it the same way you have, I mean, he’s experienced it from the outside, so he can speak more tactfully with the student because he isn’t angry or upset or even hurt, sometimes the students are told ‘that annoyed me, that hurt me’, and I think that the student should know it. Just like sometimes they feel bad and you ask them for forgiveness, ‘I know you didn’t like what I told you’ and you too, ‘I didn’t like what you said or did to me’ and you also have to make them see it at that moment” (27:32_97 – 98).

In the same vein, some teachers did not venture to define their level of self-efficacy, but did allude to some experiential circumstances surrounding this concept: “My experience on a personal level, as a wife, as a mother, my religious training, that too, because in the end, Christian values and virtues, well, if you try to follow them having Christ as a model, in some way it helps you to be able to see that without being superwoman and without being perfect, try to give the best of yourself and if I have to apologize to a pupil, well I apologize, if I have to tell them I was wrong, or say ‘even if you get angry, I’ll keep saying the same’, it gives me that freedom, in other words, that confidence, on the one hand of wanting the greatest good in the end (13:22_48). Similarly, they alluded to training experiences in which they found knowledge that would help them to work on resilience skills with their pupils: “The knowledge that I’m learning in this postgraduate course has helped me to see the reason for many attitudes, and to see that it’s not so easy when a child acts in a certain way, it’s not so easy to label them ‘they’re annoying and that’s it’, but you always have to go to the cause, to the root, where it comes from, and that’s where you have to start to act” (13:31_58); “Your own experiences, right? Of life, vocation and training” (16:18_101); “In some way, the fact that we have some people who depend every day on how you get to school and how you transmit things and families who have really been having a very bad time and are having a very bad time, has forced you to be resilient and to say ‘oh blimey, I was’, to be aware that I was” (17:40_80); “I think that experience also leads us to be able to face it. I, for example, speaking for myself, I’m already of a certain age and the generation gap between me and my pupils is getting bigger and this sometimes means that, depending on what things, they’re ridiculous for you but not for them” (21:28_68); “I think that the best course we’ve taken on resilience is day-to-day life and experience” (26:22_54).

4. CONCLUSIONS

The aim of this article is to characterize the levels of self-efficacy reported by a sample of primary education teachers in the Spanish context. Four levels were identified: high, low, ambivalent and undefined. This points to several concluding ideas from the discussions. Firstly, we observed both affirmative and negative answers in state and grant-aided schools. However, the perceived lower self-efficacy of teachers from state schools compared to grant-aided schools stands out significantly. The reasons for this difference are open to question and it would be appropriate to explore in greater detail by asking teachers explicitly about the reasons for this low self-efficacy in future research. However, this initial assessment should not be taken as a generalization, as it would be inappropriate considering that only 24 schools participated in our study.

Secondly, as discussed above, perceived self-efficacy is the belief that one can perform new or difficult tasks and achieve desired results (Bandura, 1997). This cognition provides a sense of control over one’s environment and an optimistic belief that one can alter challenging environmental demands through one’s behaviour. It would therefore be necessary to work on these control cognitions with those teachers who did not explicitly state as having high self-efficacy. In this regard and in order to prepare teachers who receive training that allows them to work on resilience strategies with their students, it would be convenient to start from a personal and collective work on self-efficacy. That is why, when talking about the predictive power of self-efficacy, it is not simply in relation to estimating a future action in the abstract, but rather as a determinant of how the person will behave, the thoughts they will generate and the emotional reactions they will experience (Bandura, 1982). It could be very useful to take all this into consideration prior to the training of each teacher.

Thirdly, there is no doubt that perceived self-efficacy could be proposed as an adaptive coping strategy, being itself a construct closely related to resilience. It is known that self-efficacy beliefs determine the course of actions that each person undertakes, allowing them to face them or not depending on whether they assess that they have the appropriate strategies (Razmjoo & Ayoobiyan, 2019; Schwarzer & Warner, 2013). It also determines the degree of effort invested and persistence in the face of adversity (Bandura, 1993). Therefore, proposing the concept itself as an integrated part of the training plan for those teachers who will work with their pupils on strategies to develop resilience would encourage the optimization of their development.

Another interesting point of our reflection indicates that there is no doubt that self-efficacy has been configured throughout research as a predictor of success in the social functioning of the child and adolescent population (Perry et al., 2007, cited by Schunk & Mullen, 2012). At a contextual level, teachers and families play a crucial role, as they are indisputable educational agents in the development of children. Teachers can enable pupils to develop their skills, learning strategies and future plans to the maximum, thereby enabling a positive impact on their self-efficacy (Schunk & Mullen, 2012).Teachers have a fundamental role as motivators and generators of attitudes that direct pupils towards these goals, modifying the environment and even interpersonal strategies (Schunk & Mullen, 2012). In this regard, the teachers in our sample proposed themselves as models of resilience, being especially aware of the need to train themselves first in order to later be able to train their students in skills related to resilience.

On the other hand, the teachers’ responses analysed here revealed a lack of resources to work on activities related to the fostering of resilience and self-efficacy. In order to increase them, our study points to a number of strategies, including setting specific, short-term objectives, using institutional models, giving feedback on the student’s skill or that they self-monitor, strategies which are in turn related to an increase in the level of self-efficacy. Linked to fostering resilience and increasing self-efficacy (Schwarzer & Warner, 2013), it has been observed that pupils who evaluate their progress and use metacognitive strategies, who have role models who encourage them to set high expectations of success, a sense of control, empower them within the environment and reward them for doing well, also establish high levels of self-efficacy and cognitive engagement (Schunk & Mullen, 2012; Walker et al., 2006). Applied across the board, strategies that aim to increase self-efficacy will also be useful to learners when facing a type of constant childhood adversity: the uncertainty of not knowing if they will be able to perform a novel task due to lack of experience. In this framework, teachers who see the fruit of the work of these strategies in their students will also see their level of self-efficacy increase in their day-to-day work.

In conclusion, linked to self-efficacy, resilience is intimately linked to the occurrence of demanding situations that the person must overcome, which reflects the adaptability of human systems in any of their contexts (Bonanno et al., 2010; Masten, 2001). In this regard, according to Greene et al. (2004) self-efficacy is decisive in explaining our successes and failures. Furthermore, the concept of resilience is a multifaceted construct that also includes other personal resources, such as self-esteem, optimism, coping strategies or good social relationships (Condly, 2006). In general, due to the subject matter of the aforementioned project, it has been possible to perceive high motivation in our teachers to learn about resilience, a fact that will lead them to establish the appropriate cognitive strategies so that, once trained, they can stimulate an optimal growth of their pupils in resilient strategies. Knowing the influence on effort, persistence and cognitive resources of our sense of self-efficacy will enable us to interact effectively in the world around us (Greene et al., 2004; Schwarzer & Warner, 2013), especially when adversities appear that need to be resolved in the most resilient way possible.

5. FUNDING

This study is part of the project “Fostering resilience in primary education: innovation and continuous teacher training (ANDREIA)” (PID2019-111032RB-I00, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation), carried out during the 2020–2021 academic year by the Trivium research group at Universitat Abat Oliba CEU .

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