This qualitative research project explores the sources of lecturer self-efficacy beliefs in teacher educators new to working in Higher Education (HE), with the aim of understanding how self-efficacy beliefs can be nurtured during a critical career transition. The project is situated within a brand-new teacher education department in an English university, where several lecturers had begun new roles within a period of two years.

Teacher education is a rapidly changing landscape internationally. As policy makers seek to enhance educational outcomes, they have increasingly focused on building standardised teacher education frameworks to enhance the quality of education and support for beginning teachers. However, there still remains great variance in the manner in which teacher education is governed and implemented across European countries (Symeonidis, Hellmann and Laux, 2024) and the professional development and induction of individuals who train, educate and support beginning teachers (teacher educators) is often overlooked (InFo-TED, 2019).  

Research recognises the importance of supportive induction processes for all new academics within European HE institutions  (King, Roed and Wilson, 2018; Fabriz et al., 2021). Previous research also highlights the importance of providing new teacher educators (who often are transitioning from a practitioner role) with tailored induction support and professional development in order to support their developing professional identity and competence (Murray, Czerniawski and Barber, 2011).

Stemming from social-cognitive theory, individuals with strong self-efficacy beliefs (the belief that they have the ability to implement actions successfully in a specific domain) are more likely to achieve their goals (Bandura, 1997). Previous research has found links between positive lecturer self-efficacy beliefs and job satisfaction, reduced burnout and engagement with student-centred approaches to teaching (Cao et al., 2018; Ismayilova and Klassen, 2019), however there is a lack of qualitative research in this area and a gap in our understanding of the influence of disciplinary, environmental and cultural contexts (Matos, Iaochite and Sharp, 2022).

The first few years of a lecturer’s career in HE is a prime period for influencing positive self-efficacy beliefs (Morris and Usher, 2011) and the context in which lecturers work is an important contribution. Bandura (1997) suggests there are four sources of efficacy beliefs including mastery experiences (successful performance of a task in the given domain) which are theorised to be the most influential source, vicarious experiences (observing others model tasks successfully), verbal persuasion (feedback from others) and an individual’s interpretation of their emotional and physiological states. Although some research has investigated the sources of lecturer efficacy beliefs, with evidence supporting the influence of mastery experiences, verbal persuasion and vicarious experiences in particular (Hemmings, 2012), there is still much to be explored regarding the sources of lecturer self-efficacy beliefs in Higher Education (Matos, Iaochite and Sharp, 2022).  

The research questions addressed in this study are:

• What sources influence the development of lecturer self-efficacy beliefs in new teacher educators working in HE?
• How can lecturer self-efficacy beliefs in new teacher educators be nurtured - what support strategies are most effective?

The focus of this project was examining teacher educators’ own perceptions of the factors which influenced their lecturer self-efficacy beliefs within the context of their new role in HE. The methods chosen to explore the research questions reflect an interpretivist stance, where data collection and analysis align with the notion that knowledge is context-dependant and co-constructed by the participants and researchers.  

Purposive sampling was used to recruit teacher educators in their first two years in role within a newly formed teacher education team in an English university. Participants were invited to take part in the research via email and were provided with information about the purpose and nature of the project. Eight teacher educators agreed to take part and completed an informed consent form. All participants were new to working in HE and had previous experience as primary or secondary school teachers. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to allow participants to share their experiences and perceptions of the factors which influenced their developing self-efficacy beliefs in their new role. A series of prepared prompt questions were used by the researchers to initiate discussion such as ‘How confident do you feel in your new role on a scale of 1-10? Why is that?’ and ‘Are there any aspects of your role you feel more or less confident about?’ with flexibility regarding follow up questions from the researcher to facilitate exploration of the research aims. Interviews lasted around 30-45 minutes and were conducted via online meeting software. The interviews were recorded for transcription purposes. Photo-elicitation has been successfully used in previous research into professional transitions (Coverdale and Glazzard, 2024) where sourcing or creating the image prior to the interview helps to initiate participants’ thoughts about their experiences. In this study, participants were asked to bring a photo or image to the interview that represents their experience of their new role – the image could be created by the participant or an existing sourced image. The image was used as a discussion point, to encourage participants to share perceptions of their lecturer self-efficacy beliefs and their experience of transitioning into the role of a lecturer in Higher Education. Reflexive thematic analysis was applied to generate themes from the data, following the stages outlined by Braun and Clarke (2022). This started with familiarisation and initial coding of the transcripts (a mixture of inductive and deductive coding based on Bandura’s suggested sources of efficacy beliefs), code refinement, clustering codes on a mind map, initial theme generation, followed by theme refinement and naming. Reflexive thematic analysis was chosen as it reflects the interpretivist stance that data is always interpreted by the researcher and understanding researcher assumptions is part of the research process. Reflexive journaling was used throughout the data analysis process to record the researchers’ developing interpretations of the data and support writing up of the analysis.

All four of Bandura’s suggested sources of self-efficacy beliefs were evident in participants’ accounts of their experiences, with particularly strong influences coming from verbal persuasion (in the form of feedback from line managers, students and colleagues) and mastery experiences (practical experience of successfully completing job-related tasks). The way in which these sources were experienced in the workplace by the participants was important, within formal and informal induction processes. A psychologically safe workplace in which new colleagues are encouraged to learn from experiences and ask for help, are provided with formal opportunities to complete professional development aligned with their role, feel part of a supportive team. and receive regular direction and supervision from line managers have a positive influence on lecturer self-efficacy beliefs and their ability to navigate the ‘new world’ of HE. The study provides practical insights into the challenges and affordances of inducting several new teacher educators into a university within a short space of time. The research advocates for strategic, context-specific induction processes that prioritise professional learning, peer-support and a culture of psychological safety to foster confident and effective lecturers. The findings have wider implications for Higher Education institutions across Europe and internationally, given that previous research has suggested that academic induction is often ineffective and may contribute to lecturer attrition (King, Roed and Wilson, 2018). The study provides suggestions for effective induction and support of new lecturers, particularly those transitioning from industry and practitioner roles, and how these can benefit lecturer self-efficacy beliefs and ultimately the performance and retention of new academics.

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