Teacher Efficacy and Content Literacy Implementati PDF

Journal of Literacy Research, 40:95–127, 2008
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1086-296X print/1554-8430 online
DOI: 10.1080/10862960802070442
Teacher Efficacy and Content Literacy

Implementation: An Exploration of the
Effects of Extended Professional
Development with Coaching
Susan Chambers Cantrell and Hannah K. Hughes
University of Kentucky
Collaborative Center for Literacy and Development
This study investigated the effects of yearlong professional development with

coaching on sixth- and ninth-grade teachers’ efficacy for teaching literacy and
collective efficacy. As well, it explored the relationship between teacher efficacy
and implementation of a content literacy approach. A teacher survey was used
to measure teachers’ efficacy before and after participation in the professional
development, and classroom observations were used to measure teachers’ imple-
mentation of content literacy practices. Teacher interviews provided insight into
the processes of teacher efficacy development and content literacy implementation.
Survey results indicated significant improvements in teachers’ personal and general
efficacy for literacy teaching and in teachers’ collective teaching efficacy. Teachers
who demonstrated higher efficacy prior to participating in professional develop-
ment were more likely to implement the recommended content literacy practices.
Teacher interviews indicated that coaching and collaboration were important factors
in the development of teachers’ sense of efficacy with and implementation of
content literacy strategies.
Resúmen
En esta investigación se estudiaron los efectos de un año de entrenamiento profe-
sional en la eficacia de la enseñanza de lecto-escritura en materias de contenido en
los grados 6–9. En particular, se exploró la relación existente entre la eficacia del
maestro y la implementación de la enseñanza de contenido. Se utilizó una encuesta
para investigar la eficacia de los maestros antes y después de su participación en el
Correspondence should be addressed to Susan Chambers Cantrell, University of Kentucky, 101

Taylor Education Building, Lexington, KY 40506-0001. E-mail: sccant00@uky.edu
95
96 CANTRELL, HUGHES
entrenamiento profesional. Se llevaron a cabo observaciones en el salón de clases

para colectar las prácticas de lecto-escritura típicas en materias de contenido. Las
entrevistas con los maestros facilitaron una mirada profunda al proceso, tanto del
desarrollo de su eficacia, como de la enseñanza de lecto-escritura en materias de
contenido. Los resultados de la encuesta indicaron una mejora significativa de la
eficacia en la instrucción de lecto-escritura y en la enseñanza en general. Los
maestros que demostraron ser altamente eficaces antes de su participación en el
entrenamiento professional demostraron una tendencia a utilizar las prácticas de
lecto-escritura recomendadas. Las entrevistas con los maestros indicaron que el
entrenamiento y la colaboración fueron factores importantes en el desarrollo del
sentido de eficacia en la enseñanza de lecto-escritura en materias de contenido.
Résumé
Cette recherche a étudié pendant une année les effets du développement profes-
sionel supervisé sur l’efficacité des enseignants d’élèves de la 6ème à la 9ème
pour la pédagogie en lecture-écriture. En particulier, elle a exploré le rapport entre
lŠefficacité de lŠenseignant et la mise en oeuvre de la lecture-écriture dans les
disciplines. Un sondage a determiné lŠefficacité des enseignants avant et après
leur participation dans le développement professionel. Les observations faites en
classe ont aidé à classer les pratiques de l’enseignement de la lecture-écriture dans
les disciplines. Les interviews avec les enseignants ont facilité la compréhension
des processus de développement de l’efficacité et de l’enseignement de la lecture-
écriture. Les résultats du sondage ont indiqué une amélioration significative de
l’efficacité de l’enseignement de la lecture-écriture et de l’enseignement en général.
Les enseignants qui ont démontré une efficacité supérieure avant de participer au
développement professionel ont eu tendance à utiliser plus souvent les pratiques de
l’enseigement de la lecture-écriture recommandées. Les interviews ont démontré
que le développement professionel et la collaboration sont des facteurs importants
pour le développement du sens d’efficacité dans l’enseignement de l’exécution de
la lecture-écriture dans les disciplines.
TEACHER EFFICACY AND CONTENT LITERACY 97
The recent spotlight on adolescent literacy has clearly shown that middle and
high school teachers need to know how to address the literacy needs of the
students they teach, including students for whom reading is especially difficult
(Alvermann, 2001; Biancarosa & Snow, 2004). Addressing adolescents’ literacy
needs is complex and involves integrating literacy in the content areas and
engaging students in a range of appropriate and relevant activities that promote
both literacy and content area learning. Unfortunately, however, middle and high
school teachers are frequently unprepared to utilize literacy techniques to help
students learn content and are particularly unprepared to help students who
do not read well enough to tackle the literacy demands of their subject areas.
This lack of preparation often leaves teachers feeling ill-equipped to deal with
students’ literacy difficulties (Greenleaf, Schoenbach, Cziko, & Mueller, 2001).
Teachers’ low sense of efficacy in regard to literacy integration is compounded
by traditions in middle and high schools that favor transmission models of
content area delivery (Bean, 2000; O’Brien, Stewart, & Moje, 1995). Therefore,
while teachers may feel highly efficacious in the familiar realm of their content,
they often experience low sense of efficacy for helping struggling or seemingly
unmotivated students engage in text-based content area learning.
This paper is grounded in the assumption that teachers’ self-efficacy for
teaching—their “belief or conviction that they can influence how well students
learn, even those who may be difficult or unmotivated” (Guskey & Passaro,
1993, p. 3)—is an essential issue for middle and high school teachers as it
relates to successful integration of literacy in the content areas. The concept
of teacher efficacy has been linked to various teacher factors such as group
leadership (Hoyt, Halverson, Murphy, & Watson, 2003) and job satisfaction
(Caprara, Barbaranelli, Borgogni, & Steca, 2003), but perhaps more importantly
it has been associated with effective classroom practices (Ashton & Webb, 1982;
Gibson & Dembo, 1984) and higher student achievement (Ashton & Webb, 1986;
Ross, 1992). Observational data have suggested that teacher efficacy is related
to teacher factors associated with higher student learning such as effective class-
room organization and persistence with struggling students (Gibson & Dembo,
1984). Thus, it might be inferred that teachers’ sense of efficacy with literacy
teaching would relate to their implementation of effective literacy techniques
in the classroom and their abilities or willingness to address students’ literacy
difficulties in the content areas. Indeed, research with elementary teachers has
demonstrated that teacher efficacy is related to positive teacher practices in
teaching writing (Graham, Harris, Fink, & MacArthur, 2001), but little is known
about the importance of teacher efficacy for literacy teaching as it pertains to
content area middle and high school teachers.
Recently, collective teacher efficacy, or the “perceptions of teachers in a
school that the efforts of the faculty as a whole will have a positive effect on
students” (Goddard, Hoy, & Hoy, 2000, p. 480), has emerged as a means by
98 CANTRELL, HUGHES
which to conceptualize teachers’ beliefs about the effectiveness of their schools.

Collective efficacy is based on the notion that schools are organizations com-
prising group members who share perceptions of the abilities and effectiveness
of the group as a whole and that these shared perceptions ultimately affect
the achievement of the students in those schools. Goddard and Goddard (2001)
established relationships among personal and collective teacher efficacy by ex-
amining the extent to which a school’s collective efficacy relates to differences in
teacher efficacy among schools. Their analysis of teacher and collective efficacy
in urban elementary schools indicated that teacher efficacy varied systematically
among schools and that variation between schools could be explained by the
schools’ collective efficacy. That is, teachers’ efficacy within schools determines
schools’ collective efficacy, and schools’ collective efficacy can be linked to
distinguishable school factors such as student achievement.
Potential links between teacher efficacy and student achievement have led
to calls for an emphasis on improving teacher efficacy as a means for school
improvement (Ross, 1995; Dembo & Gibson, 1985). However, studies of the
impact of professional development on teacher efficacy have been mixed (see
Ross, 1995), and only a few studies have investigated the extent to which
teacher efficacy is related to teachers’ willingness or ability to change their
teaching practices through the implementation of new teaching strategies (Ghaith
& Yaghi, 1997; Guskey, 1988; Ross, 1994; Smylie, 1988; Stein & Wang, 1988).
Teacher efficacy studies related to literacy teaching are fewer still (e.g., Graham,
et al., 2001; Tschannen-Moran & McMaster, 2006), yet such investigations
are important in helping inform the literacy community about effective teacher
development and student learning in literacy. As the focus on literacy education
further encompasses supporting the literacy achievement of adolescents, it will
be helpful to know the extent to which middle and high school teachers’ effi-
cacy for literacy teaching is related to student literacy performance as well as
the extent to which teacher efficacy for literacy teaching can be nurtured and
developed. This is especially relevant given middle and high school teachers’
general lack of efficacy for literacy teaching (Bean, 2000; Greanleaf et al.,
2001; O’Brien & Stewart, 1990). As such, this paper examines relationships
between individual and collective teacher efficacy and teachers’ implementation
of new literacy instructional practices in the context of yearlong professional
development focused on helping content area teachers use literacy techniques to
enhance students’ learning in the content areas. Specifically, this study investi-
gated
(a) the impact of extended literacy professional development on content area

teachers’ personal, general, and collective teacher efficacy for literacy
teaching;
(b) the extent to which personal, general, and collective teacher efficacy are
related to the implementation of new literacy practices in the content
areas; and
(c) teachers’ perceptions about the development of their efficacy after com-
pleting year long professional development.
TEACHER EFFICACY THEORY AND RESEARCH
Conceptions of Teacher Efficacy

For nearly three decades, educational researchers have grappled with the con-
struct known as teacher efficacy. Inspired by Rotter’s (1966) locus of control the-
ory, the RAND Corporation used its study of teacher change to pinpoint teacher
efficacy as the most important variable in change implementation (Berman
et al., 1977). Based on teachers responses to two statements—“When it comes
right down to it, a teacher really can’t do much [because] most of a student’s
motivation and performance depends on his or her home environment,” and “If
I try really hard, I can get through to even the most difficult or unmotivated
students,” (pp. 136–137)—researchers found that teachers who believed they
could positively impact student achievement, despite barriers of students’ home
circumstances or low motivation, were more effective in implementing change.
From these findings, Ashton and Webb (1982) developed a conceptual model for
teacher efficacy that consisted of two dimensions: teaching efficacy and personal
efficacy. Teaching efficacy (often referred to as general efficacy) related to beliefs
about the extent to which teachers, in general, can impact student learning;
whereas personal efficacy related to the extent to which teachers believed that
they themselves could affect student learning. Based on this work, Gibson and
Dembo (1984) developed a questionnaire to measure these two dimensions of
teacher efficacy and utilized it to examine the relationship between teacher
efficacy and observable teacher behaviors. Their research yielded differences
between high and low efficacy teachers, with high efficacy teachers exhibiting
behaviors most closely associated with higher student achievement such as
engaging students in small-group instruction and providing useful feedback to
students.
Grounded in sociocognitive theories of learning, the concept of teacher ef-
ficacy is based on the perspectives of Bandura (1977; 1986) who asserted that
motivation is primarily influenced by two factors: outcome expectations and
efficacy expectations. Outcome expectations are a person’s expectations about
the likely consequences of a certain behavior. Efficacy expectations are a person’s
expectations about his or her own abilities to influence or achieve a desired
outcome. An individual’s efficacy expectations are directly related to the effort
100 CANTRELL, HUGHES
that he or she is willing to put into working toward the outcome and the extent
to which he or she will persist until the outcome is achieved. Teacher efficacy is
a type of self efficacy in that teachers are strongly affected by their beliefs about
their potential to impact student learning, and those beliefs relate directly to their
effort and persistence with students. Bandura (1986) argued that teacher efficacy
is derived from four sources of information: mastery experiences, vicarious
experiences, social persuasion, and affective states. Mastery experiences refer
to the prior experiences with which individuals have perceived themselves as
successful. Because they have experienced success with prior tasks, they expect
that they will be successful in the future. Vicarious experiences occur when
individuals see the successes of others and thus expect that they can achieve
success as well. Social persuasion occurs when individuals are convinced that
they can be successful with a task through social processes. Affective states refer
to the effects of emotional states, such as stress, on one’s sense that he or she
can be successful with a task. While all four sources of information contribute
to an individual’s sense of efficacy with a task, Bandura asserted that mastery
experiences were the most powerful sources of information affecting one’s sense
of efficacy. When one has experienced success with a particular task, that success
elicits confidence that future successes with similar tasks will be achieved.
Bandura stated that the same four sources that influence individual efficacy
also affect teachers’ collective efficacy (Bandura, 1993; 1997, as cited in Ross,
Hogagoam-Gray, & Gray, 2003). Collective efficacy is the shared perception of
the school group about its abilities to affect student performance. Bandura (1993)
noted that the collective efficacy of the teachers within a school varies greatly
and systematically affects student achievement. Goddard et al. (2000) developed
a collective teacher efficacy measure designed to indicate the degree to which
teachers believe that the entire school faculty will make a difference in student
learning, and this measure was utilized to identify positive associations between
schools’ collective efficacy and school-level achievement in both reading and
mathematics. Collective teacher efficacy is described as “an emergent group-
level attribute, the product of the interactive dynamics of the group members”
(Goddard et al., 2000, p. 482). Goddard et al. identified two key elements in the
development of collective teaching efficacy: analysis of the teaching task and
assessment of teaching competence. They argued that teachers’ beliefs about the
extent to which their group of teachers can effectively impact student learning
are affected by their perceptions of the task difficulty in relation to their notions
of the group’s competence. They hypothesized that school groups with high
collective teacher efficacy are more likely to accept challenging goals, put forth
high levels of organizational effort, and persist with students to achieve higher
levels of achievement. In contrast, groups with low levels of collective efficacy
are less likely to put forth effort, are more likely to give up, and will likely
achieve lower levels of student performance.
Efficacy and Teacher Development

Since the RAND study determined that teacher efficacy was the most important
predictor of successful change implementation (Berman et al., 1977), other
researchers have confirmed the essential nature of teacher efficacy in educational
change. Guskey (1988) examined the extent to which teacher efficacy, teaching
affect, and teaching self-concept were related to teacher attitudes toward the
implementation of mastery learning techniques learned during a day-long staff
development program. He found that these teacher characteristics were signif-
icantly related to teachers’ attitudes about congruence, difficulty of use, and
importance of the recommended practices. That is, teachers with higher levels
of efficacy tended to rate the mastery learning techniques as more congruent with
their current teaching practices, easier to implement, and more important than did
teachers with lower levels of efficacy. More recently, teacher efficacy has been
linked to the implementation of a reading instructional program (Tschannen-
Moran & McMaster, 2006).
Researchers who have followed teachers during the initial stages of innovation
implementation have noted complex relationships between teacher efficacy and
teacher change. Smylie (1988) highlighted the importance of personal teacher ef-
ficacy in enabling teachers to change their practices in that teachers’ perceptions
and beliefs about their practices were the most significant predictors of teacher
change in behavior. Similarly, Stein and Wang (1988) found significant increases
in teachers’ implementation and efficacy over the course of a professional devel-
opment project on mainstreaming and noted that the timing of the improvements
suggested a natural sequence of development leading from improvement in
implementation to subsequent increases in teacher efficacy. In examining teacher
efficacy for teaching reading, Tschannen-Moran and McMaster (2006) noted
similar levels of complexity with linking teaching efficacy and implementation in
that teacher efficacy dipped for many teachers after participation in professional
development. In this study of reading instruction, follow-up coaching seemed
essential in supporting teachers’ efficacy as they attempted to implement new
strategies.
Researchers have theorized that school improvement can be achieved through
the development and enhancement of teacher efficacy but that the context spe-
cific and reciprocal natures of teacher efficacy should be recognized (Dembo
& Gibson, 1985; Tschannen-Moran, Hoy, & Hoy, 1998; Ross, 1995). When
teachers feel they do not have the knowledge or skills to deal with the specific
situations they face, their sense of efficacy may be reduced for that situation.
Likewise, while teacher efficacy may increase student achievement, improved
student achievement is likely to increase teachers’ efficacy (Guskey, 2002). When
implementing new practices, teachers’ sense of efficacy often dips as teachers
struggle in the early stages of implementation and then rebounds as they gain
increasing competence (Ross, 1994; Stein & Wang, 1988). When teachers begin
to notice increases in student performance, their efficacy often improves, and
their attitudes about the innovation grow more positive (Guskey, 2002).
Though studies of extended professional development efforts have yielded
some success, it is often difficult to change the efficacy of experienced teachers
since a teacher’s sense of efficacy is deeply engrained over time. Professional
development programs that spanned several months and included opportunities
for teachers to collaborate have resulted in increased teacher efficacy (Henson,
2001; Ross, 1994). These studies suggest that affecting a teacher’s sense of
efficacy is a complex process that requires professional development that engages
teachers in collaborative critical thinking about their practices and in actively
changing behaviors.
In addition to teacher collaboration, coaching has the potential to support the
development of teachers’ efficacy as they implement new programs or strategies.
Though rigorous research studies on coaching are scarce, scholars have recom-
mended providing coaching support for teachers for many years (Bean, 2004;
Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995; Joyce & Showers, 1988; Showers &
Joyce, 1996). Ross (1992) studied relationships between student achievement,
teacher efficacy, and coaching and found that middle school teachers’ efficacy
was supported through interaction with coaches. Other studies with coaching
components have found similar impacts on teacher efficacy (Tschannen-Moran &
McMaster, 2006). Generally, teachers report positive experiences when provided
coaching as a resource (Marks & Gersten, 1998; Van Keer & Verhaehe, 2005;
Veenman & Denessen, 2001), and research indicates the positive impact of
coaching on teacher practice (Paglinco et al., 2003).
Content Literacy and Teacher Efficacy

Content literacy approaches, which infuse literacy strategies across the cur-
riculum into each subject area, have been utilized sporadically in middle and
high school content area classes for decades (Bean, 2000). Grounded in social
constructivist theories, these approaches are based on the notion that more
focused attempts to integrate literacy into the content areas help students develop
essential skills not only to improve their reading abilities but also to learn
content more effectively. Despite the years of focus on content literacy in
preservice and in-service teacher education, actual implementation of content
literacy techniques in middle and secondary schools has been limited due to
factors such as an apparent disconnect between content literacy approaches and
middle and high school cultures, curricula, and pedagogy (O’Brien et al., 1995).
Middle and secondary schools are characterized by distinct subject area divisions
that involve content area subcultures in which teachers value different forms
of knowledge and pedagogy. Content literacy approaches often challenge this

compartmentalization and are perceived as involving competing content and
pedagogy. For instance, middle and secondary school classrooms are typically
characterized by high levels of teacher control whereby content is disseminated
through lecture and recitation and where students are assessed through formal
tests. In contrast, content literacy approaches use student-centered methods such
as discussion and student choice, placing teachers in the role of facilitator.
O’Brien and colleagues point out that this shifting of control from teachers to
students can be disconcerting to teachers and can cause them to resist adopting
content literacy techniques. Further, pressures to “cover” subject area content as
efficiently as possible can impede teachers’ willingness to abandon traditional
pedagogical methods. Nevertheless, new emphasis at the federal level on solving
adolescent literacy problems has garnered heightened attention to the integration
of literacy in all content areas (Biancarosa & Snow, 2004).
Research on teachers’ beliefs about infusing literacy instruction across the
curriculum provides contrasting perspectives related to content area teachers’
efficacy with or sense of responsibility for teaching students literacy. Historically,
researchers have noted a resistance on the part of content area teachers to
integrating literacy into their subject area instruction as exhibited by subject
area teachers’ contention that literacy instruction was not their responsibility
(O’Brien & Stewart, 1990; O’Brien et al., 1995). Deeply engrained content area
philosophies and cultures relied instead on utilizing a transmission model for
delivering subject area content that placed teachers in the role of delivering the
content and students in the role of passive learners responsible for taking in the
subject matter. More recent research has suggested that many teachers perceive a
heavy responsibility for teaching literacy within their content, but that they may
not believe they are well-equipped to meet the literacy needs of their students
(Bintz, 1997; Mallette, Henk, Waggoner, & DeLaney, 2005).
Reviews of research (Hall, 2005; O’Brien et al., 1995) and direct work with
teachers (Greenleaf et al., 2001) have confirmed teachers’ lack of efficacy with
and attributions about literacy teaching in the content areas. Greenleaf and her
colleagues, who have worked closely with content area teachers and adolescents
in urban settings, have noted teachers’ discomfort with literacy infusion. They
found that teachers who wanted to focus primarily on teaching their subject area
content were often disappointed with students’ seeming lack of preparation from
previous grades and became frustrated with the extreme difficulties that many
adolescents have with navigating content area materials. This frustration was
compounded by the fact that these teachers frequently perceived that they did
not have the necessary skills to teach students to utilize these texts successfully.
Bintz (1997) noted similar problems related to efficacy when he found that in-
service teachers were concerned about students’ literacy difficulties but attributed
those difficulties to external factors. The teachers in his interview study did not
perceive that they contributed to students’ difficulties and did not see a need
to change their practice to better meet the literacy needs of their students. This
finding, along with the notion that teachers tend to see student ability as fixed
(Moje & Wade, 1997), illustrates the extent to which teachers might feel limited
responsibility for significantly changing student literacy performance, especially
given that content learning is perceived as the most pressing priority.
Suggested means for improving teachers’ efficacy with and implementation
of content literacy techniques have centered on revising content literacy courses
and improving professional development for middle and secondary teachers.
One recommendation revolves around abandoning the transmission model that
typically characterizes teacher education in favor of engaging teachers in critical
construction of knowledge that enables them to think analytically about the
complexities of the curriculum, pedagogy, and culture and to reflect on and plan
for how literacy can enhance student learning (Conley, Kerner, & Reynolds,
2005; O’Brien et al., 1995). Other adolescent literacy theorists point to the
importance of focusing teachers’ attention on the social and political aspects of
adolescent literacy and specifically reflecting on how students use literacy, more
broadly defined, to enhance their own lives (Hinchman & Moje, 1998). Greenleaf
and Schoenbach (2004) emphasized the importance of engaging teachers in
inquiring about their students’ and their own literacy practices to assist teachers
“in constructing richer and more complex theories of reading, in seeing in new
and more generous ways their students’ capacities to read and learn, and in
drawing on and developing their own resources and knowledge as teachers of
reading” (p. 99). Others take an even more pragmatic stance, encouraging teacher
educators to move beyond a focus on changing teacher attitudes to showing
teachers how to implement new teaching techniques that infuse literacy into the
content area curriculum (Hall, 2005). The study described in this paper examines
the impact of professional development most closely aligned with these last two
conceptions of content literacy professional development by engaging teachers in
reflection about their own content literacy strategy use and providing instruction
in and support structures for the implementation of content literacy techniques
in middle and high school classrooms. Consistent with the research on effective
professional development and teacher efficacy, the support structures in this study
included follow-up meetings, teacher collaboration, and coaching (Henson, 2001;
Joyce & Showers, 1982; Ross, 1992). The research questions that guided the
study were:
1. What are the changes in content area teachers’ personal, general, and
collective efficacy for literacy teaching after participation in an extended
professional development program?
2. To what extent are personal, general, and collective efficacy for literacy
teaching related to the implementation of literacy practices in the content
areas?
3. What are teachers’ perceptions about the process of content literacy im-
plementation, and how does extended professional development contribute
to their sense of efficacy?
METHOD
This study employs a sequential mixed methods research design that utilizes
statistical results from the full sample of study participants and then utilizes
interview data from a smaller group of participants to explore the complexities
of the quantitative findings in more depth. The first component of the study
utilizes statistical analysis of survey data to address changes in teacher efficacy
from the beginning of the professional development project to the end and uses
analysis of survey data and observational ratings to address the relationship
between teacher efficacy and implementation of the content literacy strategies.
The second component of the study uses teacher interview data to explore the
process of teacher efficacy development, including the teachers’ perceptions
about the contributions of content literacy professional development, to their
efficacy for literacy teaching.
Context and Participants

Participants for this study included 22 sixth- and ninth-grade teachers from
8 schools across a small southeastern state who participated in a professional
development program designed to help content area teachers use literacy skills to
facilitate students’ academic reading and content area learning. This study was
part of a state-level teacher quality grant and evaluation of extended content
literacy professional development on teacher practice and student achievement.
A total of 52 educators, including 2 administrators, 3 special education teachers,
2 auxiliary teachers, and 11 seventh-grade teachers participated in some aspects
of the project. However, this study focuses only on the sixth- and ninth-grade
regular classroom teachers who participated in the project, since the professional
development curriculum was designed specifically for these gateway grades.
The project targeted sixth- and ninth-grade teachers to establish a foundation of
literacy learning for students at the entry points of middle and high school with
the goal of enhancing learning through the middle and high school years and
beyond. By engaging teams of teachers at these levels, students were assumed
to benefit from multiple subject area teachers who reinforced content literacy
strategies across subject areas. All sixth- and ninth-grade teachers in the targeted
schools were invited to participate in the project, and those who participated did
so voluntarily.
Schools were recruited to participate in the program based on administrators’
expressed interest in content literacy professional development and based on the
desire for varied geographic representation. The schools represented one middle
and one high school located in the eastern part of the state, one middle and two
high schools located in the central part of the state, and one middle and two high
schools located in the western part of the state. The schools included one urban
school, four suburban schools, and three rural schools. Student demographic
information for these schools ranged from 26% to 69% of students receiving
free or reduced lunch and populations of <1% to 25% minority students.
The teacher sample included 60% females and 40% males. Information on
teachers’ ethnicity was not collected. Fifty-seven percent of the teachers had
earned a master’s degree. The teachers were distributed equally between four
core subject areas (language arts, social studies, science, and math). Teaching
experience ranged from 0–33 years, with a mean of 10.9 and a median of
7.5 years. When asked about the number of years they had been employed at
their present school, teachers’ responses ranged from 0–24, with a median time
of 5 years.
During the academic year that this study occurred, the teachers in this study
participated in an extended professional development program geared toward
equipping content area teachers with literacy techniques designed to help stu-
dents improve academic reading. The professional development was designed
and delivered by a private, nonprofit professional development provider with
whom the authors of this study were unaffiliated. The participating teachers
engaged in a weeklong summer institute, two regional follow-up meetings,
and monthly on-site coaching by the professional development provider. The
content of the professional development program’s summer institute and follow-
up meetings was delivered by a team of presenters led by a former middle
school teacher with a master’s degree in literacy. Each on-site coaching session
was conducted by a member of this team who had expertise in content literacy.
During the summer institutes, teams of teachers worked with other teachers
in their regions to explore research, learn new literacy-based techniques to
support their content teaching, and plan for instruction about and ongoing
application of these techniques with their own students. The format of the
summer institutes included explanation and modeling by the facilitator, teacher
participation with the techniques introduced, and extensive group work with
school, cross-disciplinary, and common discipline groups. During the school
year, participating teachers received monthly visits from an external coach. These
coaching visits included components such as (a) team meetings to review and
discuss ongoing work, (b) individualized planning sessions, and (c) modeled
lessons. The goal of these visits was to provide support for teachers as they
implemented the content literacy techniques that were introduced during the
summer institutes. In addition, coaches provided support between visits through
electronic and phone communication and by sending resources at the request of
participating teachers. Finally, teachers participated in three follow-up meetings
during the school year wherein they were released from class time and spent
full days working with teachers from a variety of schools, grade levels, and
disciplines. At these meetings, teachers shared artifacts of instruction and student
learning, explored additional pedagogical concepts and approaches related to
content literacy techniques, and planned for ongoing work.
The content of the professional development was informed by an apprentice-
ship approach to content literacy instruction (Schoenbach, Greenleaf, Cziko, &
Hurwitz, 1999), and the teachers used a core text outlining this approach. The
professional development curriculum was designed to provide teachers with a set
of techniques to help students engage meaningfully with challenging academic
texts and to enhance students’ strategic behaviors. One of the professional
development objectives was for teachers to learn to engage students in before,
during, and after reading activities with content-area texts to enhance their
comprehension during academic reading. As such, teachers were introduced
to a range of content literacy techniques designed to help students learn from
texts. Examples included (a) vocabulary activities; (b) before, during, and after
reading activities designed to engage students’ in global analysis of text, com-
prehension monitoring, and reading support; (c) writing activities designed to
engage students in interacting with text; and (d) discussion strategies designed
to engage students in reflective evaluation of text. The focus of the professional
development instruction was on helping students improve their global analysis
of text through strategies such as setting a purpose for reading; locating and
synthesizing information; predicting, visualizing, summarizing, and evaluating
text; and drawing on prior knowledge and integrating new information. Emphasis
also was placed on academic reading strategies such as note taking, using text
features, identifying and circling key words, skimming and scanning, and using
reference materials. Instruction focused not just on students’ learning to use
these strategies as directed by teachers but also on transferring knowledge about
and use of the strategies across content areas. In addition, the professional
development sought to help teachers develop a literate culture in their content
classrooms through use of a variety of print and images related to the content
areas, strategic use of physical space to promote literacy activities, teacher
modeling of literate behaviors, and rich discussions of both content and literacy
learning processes. To achieve this, institutes engaged teachers in group and
individual work reading professional literature, practicing literacy techniques and
strategies, planning for lessons and units, and reflecting on their own literacy
practices and skills.
This professional development model focused primarily on academic reading
and did not delve deeply into the sociopolitical aspects of adolescent literacy
or students’ use of literacy outside of school. Thus, while the focus was con-
sistent with theories about how to engage teachers in utilizing content literacy
approaches in that it provided a supportive structure for teachers to think about
and change their practices to include literacy techniques within the context of
the complex environments of their schools (Conley et al., 2005; Greenleaf et al.,
2001), it was somewhat inconsistent with the emphasis that theorists place on
critically examining the ways in which students use literacy outside of schools in
their everyday lives (Greenleaf & Schoenbach, 2004; Hinchman & Moje, 1998).
Given that the goal of the professional development was to engage teachers in
immediate use of literacy strategies in the classroom, emphasis was placed on
(a) building teacher efficacy and expertise through reading, writing, and group
activities that integrate literacy activities in the content areas and (b) supporting
teachers’ proficiency with using these activities in their classrooms.
Measures
Teacher efficacy survey. A 65-item survey was administered to teach-
ers that included items drawn from teacher efficacy instruments developed by
Woolfolk and Hoy (1990), Hoy and Woolfolk (1993), and Gibson and Dembo
(1984). In addition, a 12-item Collective Teacher Efficacy instrument developed
by Goddard (2002) was incorporated into the teacher survey. All items were
presented in a 6-point Likert-type format, ranging from 1 D strongly agree to
6 D strongly disagree. All of the original Likert-scale instruments from which
the present survey was adapted have demonstrated high reliability and validity.
The language of the questions was adapted as necessary to logically reflect upon
the nature of the project as it referred to teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about
literacy and the teaching of reading in the content areas. As an example of
an adaptation of such an item: “The amount a student can learn is primarily
related to family background” was changed to “The amount a student can read is
primarily related to family background.” Some additional questions were added
by the research team that focused specifically on processes related to teaching
content area literacy, such as “I know how to teach vocabulary effectively.” The
survey was designed to assess teachers in three domains of efficacy for literacy
teaching: general teaching efficacy (GTE), personal teaching efficacy (PTE),
and collective teaching efficacy (CTE). The following are examples of each
subscale:
Personal Efficacy:
“I can deal with almost any reading problem.”

“If the students are not willing to read, I can do little about it.”
General teaching efficacy:
“The low reading achievement of some students cannot generally be blamed on

their teachers.”
“The inadequacy of a student’s reading skill can be overcome by good teaching.”
Collective efficacy:
“Teachers in this school really believe every child can learn.”

“Students here are just not motivated to learn.”
The Goddard collective efficacy measure was not modified. Goddard (2002)
reported reliability of the 12-item, short form of Collective efficacy scale at
˛ D :94: Internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha) were calculated
for each scale in the entire measure and are provided in Table 1.
Observation protocol. An observation protocol based on a three-item

Global Content Literacy Classroom Implementation construct (GCLCI, see Ap-
pendix) focusing on three primary facets of a content literacy approach was used
to document teachers’ implementation of the teaching techniques emphasized in
the professional development. The protocol included the three global content
literacy indicators: environment, instruction, and assessment. Specific compo-
nents of each global indicator were listed on the protocol. The environment
indicator focused on the extent to which the classroom environments promoted
the development of a literate learning culture for students and included compo-
nents such as effective use of visuals, variety of print, use of physical space,
student discussion of learning, and teacher modeling of literate behaviors. The
TABLE 1
Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient for Efficacy Subscales and
Implementation Domains
Scale ˛ (pre, post) # of Items
Personal efficacy .84, .89 29

General teacher efficacy .74, .76 12
Collective efficacy .69, .74 12
Implementation .85, .85 3
instruction indicator focused on the extent to which the instructional approach

used literacy to support content learning while promoting the development of
ongoing literacy skills. Components included the use of the language arts in
learning; engagement of students in pre-, during-, and post-reading experiences;
and student choice about strategies. The assessment indicator focused on the
extent to which the instructional approach provided responsive instruction that
supported the learning of all students. Components included the engagement of
students in metacognitive reflection on learning and teachers’ use of evidence
from students’ literacy processes for making decisions. As well, the protocol
included a note-taking form including each specific component on which ob-
servers could provide evidence for the global ratings. The three global indicators
and specific components of each indicator are listed in the Appendix.
For each indicator, observers rated the teachers’ implementation according
to the extent to which evidence of content literacy instruction was observed.
They selected one of the following descriptors for each of the three global
indicators: Evidence to the Contrary, Some Evidence, or Extensive Evidence.
Observers were trained during a daylong session that involved viewing tapes of
classroom practice that were rated and discussed. For each component under the
three indicators, observers were provided with classroom descriptors of what
constituted evidence and made notes about how to classify each component as
contrary, some, or extensive evidence. Observers were trained that “contrary
evidence” meant little or no evidence of literacy strategies or that little or no
integration of literacy instruction in the content area was observed. Extensive
evidence meant that multiple opportunities for using literacy in the content area
were utilized, and some evidence meant that observers could identify at least
one example of literacy integration for the component. Inter-observer agreement
on these observations was 95%.
To arrive at the GCLCI rating for each teacher, a summative scale was
derived from the classroom observation instrument by assigning a numeric
value from 0–2 to each of the three global indicators (environment, instruction,
and assessment). Ratings of evidence to the contrary were assigned a 0, some
evidence was assigned a 1, and extensive evidence was assigned a 2, and then
the ratings were summed. Thus, a higher number on this scale represents higher
levels of implementation of content literacy practices in the classroom. Internal
consistency coefficients were calculated for the GCLCI and are provided in
Table 1.
Teacher interviews. Because teacher efficacy is complex, researchers have

advocated the use of qualitative data collection methods to shed light on the
process of efficacy development and to lend context to quantitative findings
related to teacher efficacy (Labone, 2004; Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). In this
study, end of year teacher interviews were utilized as secondary data sources
to help explain findings about teacher efficacy, professional development, and
implementation. During the end of year meeting, the 17 sixth- and ninth-grade
teachers who attended were interviewed about their perceptions of the content
literacy project. Three of the questions asked related specifically to the teach-
ers’ efficacy with implementing the techniques learned during the professional
development:
1. How successful do you think you were in implementing the techniques

emphasized in the content literacy project?
2. What barriers did you encounter as you tried to implement the content
literacy techniques?
3. How well are you now equipped to utilize literacy techniques in the content
area?
Data Collection
Efficacy surveys. Teachers completed individual and collective efficacy
surveys on the morning of the first day of the summer institute and again on
the last day of the project at the culminating meeting. These surveys were
administered by the study’s second author. Teachers who did not attend the
final meeting were mailed a survey. Two weeks later, a follow-up letter and
survey were mailed to all teachers who had not submitted a survey. Thirty-five
of 38 teachers completed the presurvey, and 28 of 38 completed the postsurvey.
Classroom observations. Prior to the summer institutes, four current or

former classroom teachers were nominated to attend the summer training and
to conduct classroom observations. The teachers were nominated by university
faculty uninvolved in the design or delivery of the professional development. Two
additional observers were selected by the study’s first author. The observers were
selected because they were considered by the university faculty to be “expert”
teachers with knowledge about integrating literacy into the content areas. Three
had previously participated in the state affiliate of the National Writing Project,
and one had participated in another literacy institute. These observers conducted
classroom observations in the classrooms of all sixth- and ninth-grade regular
classroom teachers who participated in the project. The first observation was
conducted between September 1 and October 15, and the second observation
was conducted between April 1 and May 15. Each observation spanned a full
course period. Observers rated the teachers’ level of implementation on three
global indicators of content literacy instruction: environment, instruction, and
assessment. Using the observation protocol, they noted the extent to which
specific components of each indicator were present in the teachers’ instruction

and took notes related to the specific activities observed. These notes about the
individual components were used to arrive at the global ratings. Thirty-four of
38 teachers were observed in the fall, and 33 of 38 teachers were observed in
the spring.
Teacher interview procedures. During the end-of-year meeting, all of

the targeted teachers who attended were interviewed about their perceptions of
the content literacy project. Researchers met individually with each teacher and
asked questions according to a closed interview protocol. If researchers deemed
it necessary, they would ask follow-up questions such as, “Can you tell me
more about that?” All interviews were taped and transcribed for analysis. It is
important to note that just 17 of the 22 target teachers attended this end-of-
year meeting that was held after schools had closed for the summer. Thus, it
must be acknowledged that the teachers who were interviewed may not have
been representative of the entire sample of teachers in the study but may have
represented teachers who were more satisfied with the professional development
or who were more inclined toward change. Nevertheless, the perceptions of such
a group provide insights into the process of teacher efficacy development for
teachers who fully engaged in the project.
Data Analysis
Quantitative data. To answer the first research question related to teachers’
change in personal, general, and collective teacher efficacy after participating in
content literacy professional development, descriptive statistics, including means,
standard deviations, and skewness statistics were calculated for the variables of
personal efficacy (PE), general teaching efficacy (GTE), and collective teacher
efficacy (CTE), as measured by the teacher survey. Survey items were reverse
coded as necessary, and descriptive statistics were used to examine changes in
teachers’ efficacy from the beginning of the professional development project to
the end of the project. Paired sample t tests were conducted to determine the sta-
tistical significance of changes from pre- to postsurvey administration. To answer
the second research question related to the extent to which personal, general,
and collective efficacy for literacy teaching are related to the implementation
of literacy practices in the content areas, bivariate correlations were conducted
among the teacher efficacy subscales and the GCLCI ratings as measured by the
observation protocol in both the fall and spring.
Qualitative data. The first author used a two-level coding system to analyze
participants’ interview responses. For the first level of coding, each meaning unit
was coded as either a “positive,” “negative,” or “neutral” expression of teacher

efficacy. According to procedures described by Miles and Huberman (1994),
master codes—POS for positive expressions of efficacy, NEG for negative ex-
pressions of efficacy, and NEUT for neutral responses—were established and
noted during the first reading of transcripts. The second level of coding was
inductive, as subcodes were created to categorize the teachers’ attributions for
their efficacy or for changes in efficacy as the attributions emerged from the data.
For example, a response related to the ways in which coaching was helpful in
enabling teachers to feel more equipped for using content literacy approaches
was coded POS-COACH. Similarly, a response reflecting the perception that not
enough collaboration occurred among teachers in a building was coded NEG-
COLLAB while a response that collaboration among teachers helped the teacher
feel more successful with using the content literacy techniques was coded POS-
COLLAB. As each new code emerged, it was added to the code list. After
each piece of the qualitative data had been assigned a code, occurrences of each
code were counted, and assertions were based on attribution frequency. Themes
that were mentioned most frequently by teachers are described in the qualitative
findings section of this paper.
RESULTS
Quantitative Findings
The first research question focused on the effects of extended literacy profes-
sional development on the personal, general, and collective efficacy for literacy
teaching of the content area teacher participants. Table 2 shows the mean teacher
ratings for each efficacy scale on the pre- and postsurveys. The largest gain
occurred in teachers’ sense of personal efficacy for literacy teaching (.49). This
indicates that after engaging in the professional development, teachers exhibited
an increased sense of their own abilities to positively impact students’ literacy
learning. Though mean ratings from pre- to postsurveys indicated a smaller gain
TABLE 2
Pre- and Post- Mean Ratings for Personal, General, and Collective Teacher Efficacy
Efficacy Subscale Presurvey SD Postsurvey SD
Personal efficacy 3.69 .47 4.18 .54

General teaching efficacy 3.74 .34 3.94 .40
Collective efficacy 3.89 .56 4.17 .62
n D 22:
for general efficacy (.20) than for personal efficacy, the teachers also exhibited
an increased belief that teachers, in general, could positively impact students’
literacy learning, despite factors often perceived as external barriers such as
students’ home circumstances. Mean survey ratings showed small gains in col-
lective efficacy (.28), indicating that teachers possessed a stronger sense of their
faculties’ influence on student achievement after participating in the professional
development. Paired sample t tests indicated significant increases in both per-
sonal efficacy for literacy teaching, PE .t.21/ D 4:236I p < :001/I and general
teaching efficacy for literacy teaching, GTE .t.21/ D 3:000I p < :01/; as well
as significant increases in collective efficacy, CTE .t.21/ D 2:051I p < :05/:
The second research question focused on the extent to which individual and
collective teacher efficacy for literacy teaching related to the implementation of
new literacy teaching strategies. Using the data for teachers who completed both
pre- and postsurveys and were observed in both fall and spring, correlations
among the teacher efficacy subscales and teacher implementation of content
literacy techniques were explored. Table 3 shows correlations among personal,
general, and collective teacher efficacy and implementation of content literacy
techniques. Correlations with personal and general efficacy for literacy teaching
were significant as exhibited by the presurvey and implementation at the point
of the first observation but were not related to implementation at the point
of the second observation. Conversely, collective efficacy was not related to
implementation at the first point of observation but was significantly related to
implementation at the second point of observation.
These findings indicate that while individual teacher efficacy was more im-
portant in terms of implementation during the initial implementation phase,
collective teacher efficacy seemed more important in the spring. Teachers who
TABLE 3
Bivariate Correlations Among Pre- and Post-efficacy Subscales and Content Literacy
Implementation for Fall and Spring
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. personal efficacy pre

2. personal efficacy post .442*
3. general efficacy pre .249 .464*
4. general efficacy post .162 .829** .611**
5. collective efficacy pre .448* .373 .485* .338
6. collective efficacy post .200 .480* .205 .409 .383
7. implementation pre .482* .336 .501* .355 .092 .185
8. implementation post .310 .267 .386 .385 .099 .488* .420*
n D 22. *p < .05. **p < .01.

most strongly believed they could successfully affect student literacy learning at
the start of the professional development were most likely to implement content
literacy techniques at the beginning of the implementation period. Similarly,
teachers who believed that teachers, in general, can make a difference in stu-
dents’ literacy learning at the start of the professional development, were more
likely to implement content literacy techniques in the fall. Individual teacher
efficacy as exhibited at the point of the postsurvey did not appear related to the
extent to which teachers had implemented content literacy techniques in the fall
or spring. Conversely, while teachers’ presurvey beliefs in the influence of their
faculties on student achievement did not seem related to their implementation,
teachers who most strongly believed in their faculties’ influence were more likely
to exhibit high implementation in the spring.
It is interesting to note that teachers’ implementation of the emphasized
content literacy techniques increased from fall to spring. Mean implementa-
tion ratings increased from fall .M D 5:31; SD D 6:31/ to spring .M D
8:04; SD D 4:70/ during the professional development year and a t test indi-
cated this increase was significant t.21/ D 2:093I p D <:05: Thus, it appears
that teachers demonstrated more use of the content literacy techniques over the
course of the school year.
Qualitative Findings
The third research question explored teachers’ perceptions about content liter-
acy implementation and about how the professional development affected their
efficacy. Responses to the highlighted questions indicated that the interviewed
teachers were able to articulate their perceptions about specific elements of the
professional development that contributed to their efficacy with literacy teaching
and about barriers to their efficacy development and to their implementation.
Data from the analysis suggest that coaching was an essential component in
helping to support the development of teacher efficacy and implementation.
Though the interview questions did not refer specifically to the coaching com-
ponent, at some point during the interview nearly every teacher identified his or
her coach as helpful in supporting his or her implementation, and half positively
referred to their coach when responding to the highlighted questions. Coaches
supported teachers’ implementation of content literacy techniques by modeling
strategies, providing resources according to perceived need and upon the request
of teachers, observing lessons, providing feedback, and assisting lesson planning.
The following response is illustrative of the ways in which teachers perceived
that coaching supported their efficacy and implementation:
Before we started the program, I had trouble with kids reading the textbook and
getting information from reading. [My coach] brought in a lot of activities and
she actually came in to a couple of my classes and modeled these strategies for
me. After she would model, I would take hold and try the same thing and the kids
really responded to it. We started out with something simple like the word wall
on a Civil War unit, and some of the kids that usually don’t get involved and have
trouble reading actually started to participate. I guess the biggest thing I saw as
a teacher was the participation increased, especially among the non-readers and
struggling readers. [My coach] visited quite frequently and even called to see if I
needed anything, and she would always bring in books or have something prepared
for my class, a new strategy for me to try to implement. We would talk about it
to see, Did it go well, and if not, why? What improvements can we make?”
Opportunities to practice and master the emphasized literacy techniques

seemed particularly important in supporting teachers’ sense of efficacy with
literacy teaching. Teachers frequently mentioned specific techniques that they
selected and worked to master. They commonly described struggling with imple-
mentation of the techniques, initially, but expressed satisfaction with achieving
varying levels of success. Teachers’ responses illustrated the importance of
experiencing improved student performance in reassuring their sense of efficacy.
One teacher illustrated this cyclical process:
: : : towards the beginning of the year, I was more hesitant about everything, I
think. But towards the end of the year, when the confidence level was building,
it made it easier [especially] when you see positive results from your students, as
far as comprehension. When you see them making progress, then it’s “Oh, this is
going better than I thought it was.”
Another professional development component that teachers identified as im-

portant was collaboration with other teachers in their building. Teachers em-
phasized sharing ideas, vicariously learning from one another’s successes and
difficulties, and coordinating their strategy instruction so that students would be
exposed to the same techniques across subject areas. One teacher illustrated:
I think as a whole, we were very successful as a group. We started out with one
person teaching a certain strategy and everybody using it. So, we were being held
accountable, I think, from every other teacher in the school. It helped a lot having
that support: : : : I have a really hard time in my classroom getting pieces for
them to read that are meaningful to them and finding things that are going to help
them. One thing I am planning on doing this year—which I’ve contacted all of the
freshman teachers—is “Could you get me an article they’re going to have to read
anyway in your class? Let me use it in my classroom ahead of time. Let’s figure
out how to approach this text.”
Another remarked:
An advantage was that most of the teachers at the same grade level were also
implementing these strategies so that it wasn’t just an isolated classroom that was
teaching it. It was across the board. If they did the Frayer Model in my room, they
were not just doing it in my room, they were also doing it in their social studies
classes and their English classes. Part of the success of the implementation was
the fact that everybody was on board with it.
Some teachers indicated that they were reluctant to implement certain tech-
niques with students due to concerns about management and control or because
they conflicted with traditional classroom structures. The following quote illus-
trates this concern and reflects the potential of coaching to help teachers see
possibilities:
I would have liked to have tried more of the strategies. I tend to be a control
freak in my classroom and have the students sitting in straight rows and doing
what I ask them to do, and I don’t think that I gave them as much freedom as I
should have. When [my coach] came in and had them engaged in groups and they
answered various questions among themselves, I could see how effective that was
and how engaged the students were. I knew they were getting a lot out of it. That
was particularly effective for me to see a strategy modeled so well.
The primary barrier to teachers’ sense of efficacy with literacy integration

was time: time to develop their skills, time to implement the emphasized tech-
niques, and time to collaborate with colleagues. Several teachers perceived that,
although they did have more knowledge and skill related to utilizing literacy in
their content area, they needed more time to develop those skills and to gain
proficiency with the emphasized techniques. Other teachers expressed concerns
about utilizing instructional time to implement literacy strategies at the expense
of covering essential subject area content. This concern often seemed fueled by
assessment and accountability pressures as well as the breadth of content that
teachers felt compelled to cover.
I’ve been moderately successful: : : : [My biggest barrier was] just time. Time
management. You know you’ve got the core content you’ve got to get through.
You’ve got AP testing to prepare for. You’ve got everything else you’ve got to
prepare for, and it’s like, oh gosh, one more thing. But, again, once I became more
comfortable and more confident with the material, then that became secondary. If I
had to do it all over again, I would just start very early on and be more purposeful
in my own planning and implementation. [What would help me] is continued use
and a continued awareness of what’s out there. It’s again, just me being more
intentional. But that causes a paradigm shift in my brain, because rather than just
teaching the roles of the president, or was Deep Throat a hero or a traitor, I can
bring in a literacy strategy: : : :
Several teachers perceived that they had insufficient time to collaborate with
colleagues in their building and that more time to do so would have supported
their implementation and would have made them feel more efficacious with
utilizing the literacy techniques emphasized in the professional development.
One barrier was time. Just trying to get time for me to sit down and really work
through it. Several of us were sharing information and trying to collaborate a little,
and that would have been nice to have had maybe a day set aside that we could
collaborate a bit more in depth.
Another teacher, who was the only teacher from his middle school team to
participate, expressed a yearning for more collaboration and touted the benefits
of the vicarious experiences that accompany collaboration:
There weren’t a lot of people to talk about things with, and if I had somebody on
my team that had been incorporating the same strategies, I might have been able
to bounce ideas off somebody else. If more teachers from my team were doing it,
it gives you more common things to talk about. You know, just, “I tried this, here’s
how it worked.” I think that’s how we learn a lot of things. Other people trying it,
it works for them, and seeing if you can incorporate that into what you do.
Limitations of the Study

The findings of this study must be interpreted in the context of several limita-
tions. First, growth in teacher efficacy for literacy teaching was not compared
to a control group of teachers who did not participate in the professional
development. Therefore, it cannot be assumed that changes in teacher efficacy
were a direct result of participation in the professional development. Next, the
relatively small sample size of teachers limits the extent to which findings can
be generalized to the larger population of middle and high school teachers. As
is usually the case with survey research, the findings are limited by the fact
that the participants who chose to complete the pre- and postsurvey may have
characteristics that are not representative of the entire population. Because only
58% of the sixth- and ninth-grade teachers who participated in the professional
development completed all phases of data collection, a differential impact may
be represented. Further, the frequency and duration of the classroom observations
were not ideal for determining extent of implementation in that teachers were
observed only twice—for one class period each time. Future studies would do
well to employ observations over an extended period of time to ascertain the
extent to which teachers implement new techniques with the various groups
of students with which they work. Finally, the sample of teachers who were
interviewed was biased toward teachers who exhibited high levels of engagement
in the professional development as exhibited by their attendance at the meeting
held after the school year had ended. Thus, the findings from this component
of the study should not be generalized beyond teachers who “buy in” to a
particular professional development experience. Nevertheless, it seems logical to
assume that the benefits of most professional development programs are directly
related to teachers’ level of participation and engagement in that teachers who
participate fully likely learn more. Thus, this study offers much to consider in
terms of the potential of content literacy professional development to improve
teachers’ efficacy with literacy teaching.
DISCUSSION
The teachers in this study experienced growth in personal, general, and col-
lective efficacy for literacy teaching efficacy over the course of the yearlong
professional development project. Because training in literacy teaching is not
a requirement for secondary teachers in the state in which this study occurred,
it was expected that the content area teachers in this study would experience
a positive change in personal teacher efficacy related to literacy teaching and
learning after participating in extended literacy professional development. The
authors hypothesized that a lack of knowledge and strategies related to helping
students with literacy difficulties was a barrier to content area teachers’ efficacy
and that with new strategies to help students with difficult literacy tasks in
their content areas, teachers’ sense of personal efficacy would improve. Just as
Henson (2001) found that extended professional development affected teachers’
efficacy in positive ways, this yearlong professional development with on-site
coaching in content literacy seemed to affect teachers’ efficacy related to literacy
in positive ways.
While the impact of professional development on individual teacher efficacy
has been the subject of several studies (Guskey, 2002; Henson, 2001; Stein &
Wang, 1988; Tschannen-Moran & McMaster, 2006), researchers have not exten-
sively explored the impact of professional development on collective efficacy.
This study suggests that a team approach to professional development supports
teachers’ sense of collective teacher efficacy. Engaging teams of teachers in
collaborative work over the course of an entire school year strengthened teach-
ers’ sense that their faculties could influence students’ literacy achievement.
This seems especially important given the links between collective efficacy and
student achievement (Goddard et al., 2000), and given the findings of this study
that indicate relationships between teachers’ sense of collective efficacy and
content literacy implementation at the end of the project year. The extended
and collaborative nature of the professional development enabled teachers to

work together to experience group level mastery and to benefit from vicariously
experiencing one another’s successes (Bandura, 1986). Interviews indicated that
some teachers in the study did not have the benefit of strong collaborative ties
and that they perceived this as a disadvantage.
Extensive coaching has been linked to increased teacher efficacy (Ross, 1992;
Tschannen-Moran & McMaster, 2006), and this research is consistent with that
finding. Coaching appears to provide support for teachers as they gain mastery
experiences with new techniques, and as Bandura (1997) contended, mastery
experiences are the most important sources of information that contribute to a
sense of efficacy. In interviews, teachers affirmed that feedback and support from
coaches was essential in enabling them to build a sense of proficiency with new
teaching techniques over time. Coaches modeled, provided resources, and offered
on- and off-site support as teachers worked to strengthen their implementation
of content literacy over time. While the research base on coaching is still quite
limited, this study confirms research suggesting that ongoing support is essential
in enabling teachers to internalize innovations and to change their practice in
significant ways (Marks & Gersten, 1998; Van Keer & Verhaehe, 2005; Veenman
& Denessen, 2001). This study suggests that coaching is particularly important
in enabling content area teachers to develop efficacy with integrating literacy
strategies into the teaching of their subject area given that subject-area teachers
often resist content literacy approaches (O’Brien et al., 1995).
It is likely that the duration and intensity of this professional development
experience provided multiple opportunities for teacher collaboration and con-
tributed to its impact on teacher efficacy. The five-day institute gave entire
grade levels of middle and high school teachers extended time together to
share their expertise and to develop a sense of community and a vehicle for
sharing successes. Henson (2001) pointed to the importance of collaboration
in helping teachers feel more efficacious, and this study suggests that peer
collaboration paired with coaching by an external specialist can support teachers’
efficacy and innovation implementation. The theme of collaboration emerged as
an attribution when teachers were asked about their success in implementing
content literacy techniques over the course of the school year. Thus, this study
lends empirical support to the widely-held notion that professional development
“must be sustained, ongoing, intensive, and supported by modeling, coaching,
and the collective solving of specific problems of practice” (Darling-Hammond
& McLaughlin, 1995, p. 597).
This study found teachers’ personal and general teaching efficacy was related
to their initial implementation of the content literacy techniques, a finding consis-
tent with others who have linked efficacy with implementation (Guskey, 1988;
Smylie, 1988). Because changes in efficacy and implementation are cyclical
and reciprocal (Stein & Wang, 1988) it is difficult to determine the extent to
which one influenced the other in this study. Nonetheless, the fact that teacher
implementation of a content literacy approach increased from fall to spring
reiterates the importance of ongoing professional development and coaching to
enable teachers to take implementation risks and to receive feedback and support
about their practices. Teachers in this study who reported higher levels of efficacy
coming into the professional development were more likely to implement new
strategies in the fall. Others have reported that high efficacy teachers have
stronger attitudes about implementation innovation (Guskey, 1988; Tschannen-
Moran & McMaster, 2006), so this finding seems consistent in that the high
efficacy teachers in this study were more willing than low efficacy teachers to
give the new strategies a try early in the year. This initial high efficacy advantage
was diminished by spring, indicating that factors other than efficacy likely im-
pacted the process of implementation over the course of the year. Indeed, teacher
interviews reflected that teachers’ efficacy for literacy teaching often dipped as
teachers struggled with beginning implementation and then rebounded when they
witnessed their efforts’ impact on student learning. Further study that explores
the process of innovation implementation with respect to teacher efficacy should
be conducted using the alternative research paradigms that have been advocated
(e.g., Labone, 2004). This might include ethnographic studies that incorporate
multiple and extended classroom observations and teacher interviews over time.
Given the recent attention on adolescent literacy (Cassidy & Cassidy, 2007),
this study advances the field of literacy by suggesting effective practices for
content literacy professional development. First, this study offers a model for
increasing middle and secondary teachers’ general, personal, and collective
efficacy for literacy teaching. Though it is now well accepted that effective
professional development requires much more than just a “one-shot” workshop
(Darling-Hamond & McLaughlin, 1995; Joyce & Showers, 1982; Showers &
Joyce, 1996), the field needs models for professional development that lead
to change in teachers’ perceptions about themselves and their students. This
study indicates that professional development efforts should engage teachers
in extended teacher institutes that revolve around modeled lessons and self-
reflection. It further suggests that teachers learn best with the ongoing support
of coaches and colleagues in a collaborative context. If middle and secondary
teachers are to successfully shift their practices toward those that utilize literacy
as an integral tool for learning, they must be provided opportunities to engage
with both their colleagues and with experts.
Second, this study highlights the important relationship between teacher
efficacy and content literacy implementation. Often, teachers are expected to
learn and implement new practices, but little attention is paid to their beliefs
about students’ potential to achieve and about their own potential to influence
student learning. This study suggests that professional development should ad-
dress teachers’ efficacy beliefs by engaging them in supported practices that
lead to mastery experiences, the most powerful influence on teacher efficacy
(Bandura, 1986). Because the data in this study indicate that content literacy
implementation is closely related to teacher efficacy, then content teachers’
efficacy for literacy teaching needs to be supported before teachers can be
expected to implement practices that diverge from traditional practices for their
disciplines. Furthermore, because the teachers with higher efficacy were more apt
to adopt content literacy practices from the start, content literacy professional
development needs to address teachers’ beliefs about teachers’ influence on
students’ literacy learning at the same time it introduces new classroom strategies
and practices.
Finally, this study addresses the ways in which professional development can
best support content area teachers as they work to implement content literacy
practices in middle and secondary school classrooms. Content teachers are cer-
tain to encounter barriers in the early stages of content literacy implementation.
They often struggle with low efficacy for literacy teaching (Greenleaf et al.,
2001) and experience conflicts related to engrained classroom cultures and
content-specific norms (O’Brien et al., 1995). In this study, the greatest barrier to
improved efficacy was time—time to teach, time to collaborate, and time to learn.
Teachers need support in seeing how literacy can be used as a tool that helps them
accomplish their content goals, and professional development must consider
teachers’ needs for time to reflect both collaboratively and independently. This
study suggests that middle and secondary content teachers can develop increased
efficacy for literacy teaching through continued practice, along with support
from coaches and colleagues. Such opportunities will lead to increased mastery
experiences for teachers and will ultimately result in higher levels of content
literacy implementation.
CONCLUSION
Because teacher and collective efficacy have been linked to student achievement,
it is worthwhile to explore the ways in which these constructs can be developed
specifically with regard to literacy teaching. Recent reports at the national level
raise concerns about adolescents’ literacy preparation for life beyond the P-12
education system (ACT, 2006; NAEP, 2005), yet middle and high school content
area teachers generally have little preparation for dealing with students’ literacy
difficulties. This study affirms the importance of attending to teachers’ personal
sense that they can make a difference in student literacy learning, regardless
of often-perceived barriers such as student background and motivation. Because
personal efficacy was related to the extent to which teachers were willing and/or
able to implement the desired techniques, preservice and in-service educators

would do well to pay attention to personal efficacy as an important disposition
that should be developed. Because middle and high school teachers often express
lower levels of efficacy related to teaching literacy in the content areas, their
sense of personal efficacy with literacy teaching should be considered and
fostered to promote higher levels of content literacy implementation.
Adolescent students come to school with a wide range of diverse learning
needs. Helping teachers of adolescents gain the knowledge and skills necessary
to engage their students in deeper content area learning enables them to better
address the diverse needs of their students. This study shows that extended
professional development can help teachers feel that they can overcome barriers
related to external factors and that they can make positive differences in the
learning of all students. Increasing teacher and collective efficacy, and in turn
affecting student achievement, will help ensure that students are better prepared
for post secondary education and for the workforce. A strong knowledge base
about professional development that impacts teacher efficacy has the potential
to affect the extent to which teachers expect students to achieve at high levels,
thus ultimately impacting student literacy learning and societal well-being.
REFERENCES
ACT, Inc. (2006). Reading between the lines: What the ACT reveals about college readiness in
reading. Retrieved June 10, 2007 from http://act.org/
Alvermann, D. E. (2001, October). Effective literacy instruction for adolescents. Paper commissioned
by the National Reading Conference. Chicago, IL: National Reading Conference.
Ashton, P. T., & Webb, R. B. (1986). Making a difference: Teachers’ sense of efficacy and student
achievement. New York: Longman.
Ashton, P. T., & Webb, R. B. (1982, March). Teachers’ sense of efficacy: Toward an ecological model.
Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New
York.
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological
Review, 84, 191–215.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning. Educational
Psychologist, 28, 117–148.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.
Bean, R. M. (2004). The reading specialist: Leadership for the classroom, school, and community.
New York: Guilford.
Bean, T. W. (2000). Reading in the content areas: Social constructivist dimensions. In M. L. Kamil,
P. B. Mosenthal, P. D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (Vol. III, pp. 629–
644). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Berman, P., McLaughlin, M., Bass-Gould, G. V., Pauly, E., Zellman, G. L. (1977). Federal pro-
grams supporting educational change, Vol. VII: Factors affecting implementation and continuation
(R-1589/7-HEW). Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
Biancarosa, G., & Snow, C. E. (2004). Reading next—A vision for action and research in middle and
high school literacy: A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York. Washington, DC: Alliance
for Excellent Education.
Bintz, W. P. (1997). Exploring reading nightmares of middle and secondary school teachers. Journal
of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 41, 12–24.
Caprara, G. V., Barbaranelli, C., Borgogni, L., & Steca, P. (2003). Efficacy beliefs as determinants
of teachers’ job satisfaction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 821–832.
Cassidy, J., & Cassidy, D. (2007). What’s hot, what’s not for 2007. Reading Today, 24(4), 1.
Conley, M. W., Kerner, M., & Reynolds, J. M. (2005). Not a question of “should,” but a question
of “how”: Integrating literacy knowledge and practice into secondary teacher preparation through
tutoring in urban middle schools. Action in Teacher Education, 27(2), 22–32.
Darling-Hammond, L., & McLaughlin, M. W. (1995). Policies that support professional development
in an era of reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 76, 597–604.
Dembo, M. H., & Gibson, S. (1985). Teachers’ sense of efficacy: An important factor in school
improvement. Elementary School Journal, 86, 173–184.
Ghaith, G., & Yaghi, H. (1997). Relationships among experience, teacher efficacy, and attitudes
toward the implementation of instructional innovation. Teaching and Teacher Education, 13, 451–
458.
Gibson, S., & Dembo, M. H. (1984). Teacher efficacy: A construct validation. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 76, 569–582.
Goddard, R. D. (2002). A theoretical and empirical analysis of the measurement of collective
efficacy: The development of a short form. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 62,
97–110.
Goddard, R. D., & Goddard, Y. L. (2001). A multilevel analysis of the relationship between teacher
and collective efficacy in urban schools, Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 807–818.
Goddard, R. D., Hoy, W. K., & Hoy, A. W. (2000). Collective teacher efficacy: Its meaning, measure,
and impact on student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 37, 479–507.
Graham, S., Harris, K. R., Fink, B., & MacArthur, C. A. (2001). Teacher efficacy in writing: A
construct validation with primary grade teachers. Scientific Studies of Reading, 3, 177–202.
Greenleaf, C. L., & Schoenbach, R. (2004). Building capacity for the responsive teaching of reading
in the academic disciplines: Strategic inquiry designs for middle and high school teachers’ pro-
fessional development. In D. S. Strickland & M. L. Kamil (Eds.), Improving reading achievement
through professional development (pp. 97–127). Norwood, MA: Christopher Gordon.
Greenleaf, C. L., Schoenbach, R., Cziko, C., & Mueller, F. L. (2001). Apprenticing adolescent
readers to academic literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 71(1), 79–129.
Guskey, T. R. (1988). Teacher efficacy, self-concept, and attitudes toward the implementation of
instructional innovation. Teaching and Teacher Education, 4(1), 63–69.
Guskey, T. R. (2002). Professional development and teacher change. Teachers and Teaching, 8,
381–391.
Guskey, T. R., & Passaro, P. D. (1993). Teacher efficacy: A study of construct dimensions. Paper
presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Atlanta, GA.
Hall, L. A. (2005). Teachers and content area reading: Attitudes, beliefs, and change. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 21, 403–414.
Henson, R. K. (2001). The effects of participation in teacher research on teacher efficacy. Teaching
and Teacher Education, 17, 819–836.
Hinchman, K. A., & Moje, E. B. (1998). Locating the social and political in secondary school
literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 33, 117–128.
Hoy, W. K., & Woolfolk, A. E. (1993). Teachers’ sense of efficacy and the organizational health of
schools. The Elementary School Journal, 93, 355–372.
Hoyt, C. L., Murphy, S. E., Halverson, S. K., & Watson, C. B. (2003). Group leadership: Efficacy
and effectiveness. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 7, 259–274.
Joyce, B., & Showers, B. (1988). Student achievement through staff development. White Plains, NY:
Longman.
Joyce, B., & Showers, B. (1982). The coaching of teaching. Educational Leadership, 40, 4–16.
Labone, E. (2004). Teacher efficacy: Maturing the construct through research in alternative paradigms.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 341–359.
Marks, S. U., & Gersten, R. (1998). Engagement and disengagement between special and general
educators: An application of Miles and Huberman’s cross-case analysis. Learning Disability
Quarterly, 21, 34–56.
Mallette, M. H., Henk, W. A., Waggoner, J. E., & DeLaney, C. J. (2005). What matters most?
A survey of accomplished middle-level educators’ beliefs and values about literacy. Action in
Teacher Education, 27(2), 33–42.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Moje, E. B., & Wade, S. E. (1997). What case discussions reveal about teacher thinking. Teaching
and Teacher Education, 13, 691–712.
National Assessment of Educational Progress. (2005). The nation’s report card. Retrieved June 10,
2007 from http://nced.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading
O’Brien, D. G., & Stewart, R. A. (1990). Preservice teachers’ perspectives on why every teacher
is not a teacher of reading: A qualitative analysis. Journal of Reading Behavior, 22, 101–
129.
O’Brien, D. G., Stewart, R. A., & Moje, E. B. (1995). Why content literacy is difficult to infuse
into the secondary school: Complexities of curriculum, pedagogy, and school culture. Reading
Research Quarterly, 30, 442–463.
Paglinco, S., Bach, A., Hovde, K., Rosenblum, S., Saunders, M., & Supovitz, J. (2003). The heart
of the matter: The coaching model in America’s Choice schools. Consortium for Policy Research
in Education, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.
Ross, J. A. (1992). Teacher efficacy and the effects of coaching on student achievement. Canadian
Journal of Education, 17, 51–65.
Ross, J. A. (1994). The impact of an inservice to promote cooperative learning on the stability of
teacher efficacy. Teaching and Teacher Education, 10, 381–394.
Ross, J. A. (1995). Strategies for enhancing teachers’ beliefs in their effectiveness: Research on a
school improvement hypothesis. Teachers College Record, 97, 227–251.
Ross, J. A., Hogaboam-Gray, A., & Gray, P. (2003, April). The contribution of prior student
achievement and school processes to collective teacher efficacy in elementary schools. Paper
presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL.
Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement.
Psychological Monographs, 80(1), 1–28.
Schoenbach, R. Greenleaf, C., Cziko, C., & Hurwitz, L. (1999). Reading for understanding. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Showers, B., & Joyce, B. (1996). The evolution of peer coaching. Educational Leadership, 53(6)
12–16.
Smylie, M. A. (1988). The enhancement function of staff development: Organizational and psycho-
logical antecedents to individual teacher change. American Educational Research Journal, 25,
1–30.
Stein, M. K., & Wang, M. C. (1988). Teacher development and school improvement: The process
of teacher change. Teaching and Teacher Education, 4, 171–187.
Tschannen-Moran, M., Hoy, A. W., & Hoy, W. K. (1998). Teacher efficacy: Its meaning and measure.
Review of Educational Research, 68, 202–248.
Tschannen-Moran, M., & McMaster, P. (2006, April). Sources of self-efficacy beliefs: Four profes-
sional development models and their relationship to self-efficacy and implementation of a new
teaching strategy. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research
Association, San Francisco, CA.
Van Keer, H., & Verhaehe, J. P. (2005). Comparing two teacher development programs for innovating
reading comprehension instruction with regard to teachers’ experiences and student outcomes.
Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 543–562.
Veenman, S., & Denessen, E. (2001). The coaching of teachers: Results of five training studies.
Educational Research and Evaluation, 7, 385–417.
Woolfolk, A. E., & Hoy, W. K. (1990). Prospective teachers’ sense of efficacy and beliefs about
control. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 81–91.
APPENDIX:
Indicators of Classroom Practice
Global Indicator: Environment

The classroom environment promotes the development of a literate learning
culture for all students
Environment Components
Visuals promote vocabulary development, reading, writing, and conversation

relevant to the discipline.
There is a variety of print and images relevant to the discipline.
The physical space in the classroom promotes use of both individual and
small/whole group settings for reading, writing, and conversation relevant
to the discipline.
Students discuss both content and learning processes.
The teacher models literate behaviors.
Global Indicator: Instruction

The instructional approach uses literacy to support content learning at the same
time it promotes the development of ongoing literacy skills.
Instruction Components
Learning and demonstration of learning are approached through reading,

writing, speaking, listening and observing.
Students engage in pre-, mid-, and post reading experiences designed to set
context for reading, support comprehension, and reflect on text.
Students make choices about the strategies they employ during reading,
writing, and content conversation.
Evidence demonstrates that students have received instruction on how to apply
strategies to learn.
Global Indicator: Assessment

The teacher provides responsive instruction that supports the learning needs of
all students.
Assessment Component
Students engage in metacognitive reflection focused on processing learning

experiences and self-assessing.
Teachers use evidence from students’ learning processes (reading, writing,
speaking, listening, and production) to recognize and respond to immediate
learning needs.
NOTE
Indicators developed by the Collaborative Teaching and Learning.
Susan C. Cantrell is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education in the depart-

ment of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Kentucky. She is the
Executive Director of the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development and
is Principal Investigator on a grant from the U.S. Department of Education
to evaluate the effectiveness of the Striving Readers program in Kentucky.
Dr. Cantrell’s research focuses on teacher efficacy and development, effective
classroom instruction, and reading comprehension processes and interventions.
Dr. Cantrell can be contacted at the Collaborative Center for Literacy Develop-
ment, University of Kentucky, 101 Taylor Education Building, Lexington, KY
40506-0001. E-mail: scant00@uky.edu.
Hannah Hughes is a research assistant with the Collaborative Center for Literacy
Development. She has expertise in quantitative data analysis and project man-
agement for educational research and program evaluation. Her research interests
include achievement motivation, teacher efficacy, and quantitative methodologies
in program evaluation. She can be contacted at the Collaborative Center for
Literacy Development, University of Kentucky, 101 Taylor Education Building,
Lexington, KY 40506-0001. E-mail: hkhugh2@uky.edu.

Teacher Efficacy and Content Literacy Implementati PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Teacher Efficacy and Content Literacy Implementati PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Journal of Literacy Research, 40:95–127, 2008

Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

Teacher Efficacy and Content Literacy

This study investigated the effects of yearlong professional development with

Correspondence should be addressed to Susan Chambers Cantrell, University of Kentucky, 101

entrenamiento profesional. Se llevaron a cabo observaciones en el salón de clases

which to conceptualize teachers’ beliefs about the effectiveness of their schools.

(a) the impact of extended literacy professional development on content area

TEACHER EFFICACY THEORY AND RESEARCH

Conceptions of Teacher Efficacy

Efficacy and Teacher Development

Content Literacy and Teacher Efficacy

of knowledge and pedagogy. Content literacy approaches often challenge this

Context and Participants

“I can deal with almost any reading problem.”

General teaching efficacy:

“The low reading achievement of some students cannot generally be blamed on

“Teachers in this school really believe every child can learn.”

Observation protocol. An observation protocol based on a three-item

Scale ˛ (pre, post) # of Items

Personal efficacy .84, .89 29

instruction indicator focused on the extent to which the instructional approach

Teacher interviews. Because teacher efficacy is complex, researchers have

1. How successful do you think you were in implementing the techniques

Classroom observations. Prior to the summer institutes, four current or

specific components of each indicator were present in the teachers’ instruction

Teacher interview procedures. During the end-of-year meeting, all of

was coded as either a “positive,” “negative,” or “neutral” expression of teacher

Efficacy Subscale Presurvey SD Postsurvey SD

Personal efficacy 3.69 .47 4.18 .54

1. personal efficacy pre

n D 22. *p < .05. **p < .01.

Opportunities to practice and master the emphasized literacy techniques

Another professional development component that teachers identified as im-

The primary barrier to teachers’ sense of efficacy with literacy integration

Limitations of the Study

and collaborative nature of the professional development enabled teachers to

able to implement the desired techniques, preservice and in-service educators

Global Indicator: Environment

Visuals promote vocabulary development, reading, writing, and conversation

Global Indicator: Instruction

Learning and demonstration of learning are approached through reading,

Global Indicator: Assessment

Students engage in metacognitive reflection focused on processing learning

Indicators developed by the Collaborative Teaching and Learning.

Susan C. Cantrell is an Assistant Professor of Literacy Education in the depart-

You might also like