Educational effectiveness research shows that teacher beliefs influence how teachers interact with students and thus, not only affect the quality of their instruction but also students’ learning outcomes. A teacher’s interpersonal relationship styles, supportiveness, and mindset with regard to all students’ abilities to succeed were found to be predictive of students’ engagement in school, learning motivation, and academic achievement, as well as positive social development (e.g. Reynolds et al., 2015).

Academic optimism seems to be a promising concept in explaining teachers’ beliefs towards their students. So far, academic optimism has shown to be a latent construct that refers to three closely related concepts that have reciprocal relations with each other: academic emphasis of the school, teachers’ collective efficacy, and collective trust of the teaching staff in students and parents. Academic emphasis refers to a school’s drive for academic excellence. The teachers’ collective efficacy represents collective judgments about the capability of the school as a whole to teach even the most difficult students. The collective trust of the teaching staff in students and parents is the belief that parents and students will cooperate in the process of education (Boonen et al., 2014; Hoy, Tarter, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2006).

Academic optimism has been proven to serve as a predictor of student achievement regardless of school composition, not only in the United States but also in several European and Asian countries (e.g. Boonen et al., 2014; Chang 2011). In 2008, the concept was also operationalised and validated at the level of individual teachers (Woolfolk Hoy, Hoy, & Kurz, 2008). In 2016, Straková, Simonová, Soukup and Greger (2016) studied the concept of academic optimism in Czech schools and found a significant effect on students’ mathematics achievement – even after controlling for the socio-economic composition of the class and for prior achievement.

Recently, there has been an intensive debate about the importance of students’ non-cognitive characteristics and their role in predicting cognitive outcomes. The effort has focused especially on self-efficacy and self-concept, which are measured generally and also with respect to a specific domain. Self-efficacy – the conviction that one can successfully perform the behaviour required to produce outcomes –, and self-concept – a person's perception of themselves – have probably been studied most intensively since the late seventies. Gradually, several other relevant traits have come to the spotlight, such as: intrinsic/extrinsic student motivation (Deci, Coestner, & Ryan, 2001) and conscientiousness, self-control, grit, and a growth mindset (Dweck, 2007; West et al., 2016).
Non-cognitive student characteristics proved to be not only significant predictors of academic achievement but also important outcomes of schooling as they predict later success (Duckworth & Gross, 2014). Therefore it is worthwhile to study their relationship to factors that are crucial for students’ achievement and their success in life.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the non-cognitive outcomes of Czech lower secondary students in grade 9 and the academic optimism of their teachers. More specifically, we explore whether academic optimism has an effect on non-cognitive outcomes such as mathematical self-efficacy, general self-efficacy, perseverance, and instrumental (extrinsic) motivation.

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