University teachers' self-efficacy beliefs.

Research on teachers' self‐efficacy beliefs in a university context is lacking (Fives & Looney, ; Myyry et al., ), despite self‐efficacy beliefs being important to university teachers and their teaching practices. In a teaching context, the concept was defined by Tschannen‐Moran et al. () as teachers' beliefs about their capabilities to affect students' learning. Acknowledgement of the importance is better explained by Bandura, the theory's founder: ‘Unless people believe they can produce desired effects by their actions, they have little incentive to act. Efficacy belief, therefore, is a major basis of action’ (Bandura, , p. 3). Studies in primary and secondary education have indeed shown that teachers with higher self‐efficacy beliefs demonstrate higher levels of teaching, better levels of classroom organization and instruction (Ryan et al., ) and more differentiated instruction (De Neve et al., ; Suprayogi et al., ). Meta‐analyses by Klassen and Tze () and Zee and Koomen () demonstrated that teachers' self‐efficacy beliefs are related to students' achievement levels and teachers' stress levels. Studies have demonstrated an association between self‐efficacy beliefs and job satisfaction (Klassen & Chiu, ; Richter et al., ), as well as higher levels of collaboration among teachers with positive self‐efficacy beliefs (Ainley & Carstens, ). Studies in a university context also demonstrate meaningful associations with teachers' self‐efficacy beliefs. For example, Liu et al. () and Ismayilova and Klassen () both confirmed the relation between higher self‐efficacy beliefs and teachers' job satisfaction. Furthermore, Daumiller et al. (, ) found that university teachers' high self‐efficacy beliefs are positively associated with students' learning. Moreover, Connolly et al. () and Fong et al. () highlighted that self‐efficacy beliefs are related to teachers' willingness to participate in professional development programmes and students' classroom engagement. These results indicate that self‐efficacy beliefs are of importance in a university context. Surprisingly, while studies addressing self‐efficacy beliefs in a university context address specific teaching domains at the university level (e.g., assessment and course design), other domains such as student engagement lack acknowledgement (e.g., Connolly et al., ). Since self‐efficacy is a multidimensional construct (Fong et al., ) and is influenced by its context (Zee et al., ), it is important to differentiate self‐efficacy beliefs for specific teaching domains in the university context. Prieto Navarro (, ) highlighted university teachers' self‐efficacy beliefs in five domains: creating a positive learning climate, education design, student engagement, assessment and professional development. Taking the university teacher expertise framework of van Dijk et al. () into account, we added instructional strategies since effective instructions are related to students' achievement (Schneider & Preckel, ). The first aim of this study is to provide insight into university teachers' self‐efficacy beliefs in these six topics.