Purpose

The challenges faced by educational institutions are complex, particularly in the context of evolving student needs and societal demands. In an era where higher-order thinking skills, learning dispositions, and collaboration abilities are imperative for student success, educators and leaders are confronted with increasingly diverse and ambiguous issues (Darling-Hammond & Rothman, 2011; National Research Council (NRC), 2012). The stressors associated with these challenges underscore the necessity for collective action and support among educational professionals (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2015; Paniagua & Istance, 2018).

Vibrant Schools offer a promising framework for creating optimal learning environments that transcend the pressures on both adults and students, particularly those stemming from high-stakes examinations. This model emphasizes three key factors—enlivened minds, emboldened voices, and playful learning—which contribute to vibrant educational experiences (Clement et al., 2017; Tschannen-Moran & Clement, 2018). While previous research has highlighted the importance of collective efficacy and self-efficacy beliefs in fostering safe, inclusive, and invigorating learning environments, no studies have explored their combined predictive power within the context of the vibrant school climate.

The aim of this study is to fill this gap by examining the collective efficacy and self-efficacy beliefs of teachers and leaders as antecedents of vibrant schools. By integrating these constructs into a single model, I seek to elucidate their distinct roles and mutual influences, thereby enriching both theoretical frameworks and practical applications in education. Furthermore, by investigating predictors of vibrant schools at both individual and organizational levels, the study offers a comprehensive understanding of the factors contributing to school vibrancy. To this end, this study is guided by the following research questions:

1. To what extent do collective efficacy and self-efficacy of teachers and leaders predict school vibrancy?
2. To what extent are collective efficacy and self-efficacy of leaders and teachers correlated with one another?

Literature Review and Theoretical Framework

Researchers have explored collective efficacy and self-efficacy beliefs of teachers and leaders and found them to be crucial in creating just such safe, inclusive, and invigorating learning spaces for students, and addressing the changing needs of today’s society (e.g. Choi, 2023; Woodcock et al. 2022). Although the research literature has indicated the strong association between positive school climate and efficacy beliefs, many of them investigated school climate models as the predictors of efficacy beliefs. Furthermore, since the vibrant school model is a newly emerging climate model, few studies have been conducted to test it with its antecedents in US education contexts (e.g. Clement et al., 2017; Tschannen-Moran & Clement, 2018). To address this gap in the literature, in the present study, I examined the combined predictive power of collective efficacy and the self-efficacy beliefs of teachers and of leaders in explaining variance in vibrant school climates.

In Bandura’s (1977) conceptualization, collective efficacy beliefs and self-efficacy beliefs are distinct entities. Collective teacher efficacy (CTE) is distinguished from teachers' self-efficacy (TSE) in that it is a property of the school, examined as an attribute inherent to the school community as opposed to the beliefs of individuals (Bandura, 1977; Goddard et al., 2000; Tschannen-Moran & Barr, 2004). Despite the conceptual distinctions between teacher self-efficacy and collective efficacy, empirical evidence indicates a robust interconnection between these constructs. Therefore, prior research endeavors have generally not integrated both collective efficacy and self-efficacy within a single model, given their strong mutual influence (Goddard et al., 2004). To test Bandura’s (1997) distinct conceptualization of collective efficacy and self-efficacy, I created a regression model inclusive of both individual and organizational level efficacy beliefs.

Methods I utilized a quantitative cross-sectional survey research design (Creswell & Creswell, 2023) with multi-stage clustered sampling, as suggested by Bryman and Bell (2019). Schools are the first and main sampling unit, followed by the faculty, teachers, and school leaders in the second sampling stage. In total, 391 educators (Teachers = 340; Leaders = 51) from 28 schools were determined as the participants of this study. Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001) with eight items (M= 3.75, SD= .68, α =.92) Principal Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran & Gareis, 2004) with seven items (M= 3.7, SD= .72, α =.89), Collective Teacher Beliefs Scale (Tschannen-Moran & Barr, 2004) with six items (M= 3.71, SD= .71, α =.93) and Vibrant School Scale (VSS; Boos & Tschannnen-Moran., 2024) with 19 items (M= 3.34, SD= .71, α =.96) were used. The measures use a five-item response scale with the following anchors: 1 = not at all, 2 = very little, 3 = to some extent, 4 = quite a bit, and 5 = a great deal. Since the unit of analysis for this study was the school, with some of the constructs under study conceptualized as school-level variables, it was necessary to justify the aggregation of individual data to the school level. ICCs were used for this purpose. ICC(1) measures the degree to which individuals' perceptions are related to their group membership, while ICC(2) indicates whether group means are reliably different from each other. I conducted hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) through MPlus 8.11 to answer the first question and understand the level of collective contribution of collective and self-efficacy beliefs in explaining the variation in participants’ sense of vibrant school climate. HLM is a statistical technique widely used in various fields such as education, psychology, and sociology to analyze data with nested structures or hierarchies. It allows researchers to investigate relationships between variables while accounting for the hierarchical nature of the data, such as students nested within classrooms which are in turn nested within schools. The Pearson correlation was run to understand the intercorrelation between the efficacy constructs, the most common way of measuring linear correlation.

Preliminary Results Before conducting the HLM, I examined whether the items were normally distributed, as well as the intraclass correlations (ICC), to determine if the multilevel analysis was justified. Skewness ranged from -.44 to .26. 5 items that had less than .10 ICC were eliminated. The ICC levels for the outcome variable, VSS, showed acceptable variability (ICC1= .31, ICC2= .96). After having acceptable results for HLM, I calculated the intercorrelations between efficacy constructs with another and with VSS. Collective efficacy was strongly related to teacher self-efficacy (r = .75, p < .01) and strongly correlated to leader self-efficacy (r = .54, p < .01), and teacher self-efficacy was moderately related to leader self-efficacy (r = .27, p < .01). Collective efficacy, teacher self-efficacy and leader self-efficacy showed strong correlation to vibrant schools (r = .89, .66 and .66 p< .01, respectively) HLM was used to predict vibrancy in the schools from collective efficacy and self-efficacy of leaders and teachers. Three predictors produced R2 of .93, p < .001. The regression coefficients revealed that leaders' self-efficacy and collective efficacy are significant contributors to the model at the school level while teacher self-efficacy produced significant contribution at the individual level (R2 = .28) in explaining the variation in the school participants’ perception of vibrant schools. The results indicated that teacher self-efficacy significantly contributed to the model at the individual level but did not contribute at the school level and their individual perceptions do not translate into a broader impact on the overall school climate as they were overshadowed by collective efficacy and leader self-efficacy beliefs. This underscores the importance of fostering collective efficacy among teachers and strong, supportive leadership. School leaders should focus on building a collaborative culture where collective efficacy is cultivated, and shared goals and responsibilities are emphasized.

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