The Interactive Effects of Race and Teacher Self Efficacy on the Achievement Gap in School, 12(11)

Abstract

This article investigated the interactive effects of race and teacher self efficacy on the achievement gap in math scores for one middle school. A modified teacher self efficacy scale was used to measure the teaching self efficacy of the students’ teachers. Two Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) procedures showed a main effect for the teacher self efficacy on the students’ scores on each benchmark test. Statistically significant interactive effects were found for student ethnicity and teacher self efficacy. The findings showed that students with highly efficacious teachers earned higher test scores than did students with teachers of a low self efficacy. These findings have serious implications for addressing self efficacy’s role in bridging the achievement gap in schools.