Volume: 13  Number: 3  Page: 209–222

Singapore Teachers’ Personal and General Efficacy for Teaching Primary Social Studies

Peter Wilson1 and Geok-Chin Ivy Tan2 1Senior Lecturer in Geographical and Social Studies Education, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia and 2Humanities and Social Studies Education Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Singapore

The purpose of the study was to investigate the sense of Teacher Efficacy (TE) belief held by Singapore teachers for teaching primary social studies. Teacher Efficacy, which comprises Personal Teaching Efficacy (PTE) and General Teaching Efficacy (GTE), was measured. A group of 116 primary school teachers attending a social studies in-service course completed an adapted 23-item Science Teacher Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI-B) for the sense of efficacy and five items on demographics of sex, school type, age, years of teaching and social studies level taught. Results showed that there was a moderately high degree of PTE and GTE social studies Singapore teachers. There were no significant differences in the PTE among variables in sex, school type, age, years of teaching and social studies level taught. However, there was a significant difference between theGTEmean scores for the teachers of different years of teaching experience. A social studies efficacy profile was constructed for the Singapore social studies teachers in the study.

Keywords: Teacher efficiacy, Singapore, teachers, social studies

© 2004 P. Wilson & G-C. I.Tan

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