Self-Efficacy Beliefs in Mathematics Teaching and Learning

According to Bandura (1995), a self-efficacy belief is: “The belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations. These cognitive self-evaluations influence all manner of human experience, including the goals for which people strive, the amount of energy expended toward goal achievement. Unlike traditional psychological constructs, self-efficacy beliefs are hypothesized to vary depending on the domain of functioning and circumstances surrounding the occurrence of behavior. Self-efficacy, the belief in one’s own abilities, is a rising star in the latest research on characteristics that make a teacher most effective in the classroom. The quality of Mathematics teaching depends on the knowledge and self-efficacy beliefs of the teacher. It is important for educators to know how their learners feel, think, and act, about, within, and toward Mathematics. The belief systems of staffs create School cultures that can have vitalizing or demoralizing effects on how well schools function as a social system. In this paper, I address the self-efficacy beliefs in Teaching and Learning Mathematics.