Perceived self-efficacy: teachers’ personal resources to work on resilience in primary education

Abstract

This study reports the findings of an investigation on teachers’ perception of self-efficacy with regard to working on skills related to resilience in their pupils. Specifically, teachers were asked the following question: “To what extent do you feel prepared to foster the development of resilience skills in your pupils?”. The specific aim of this chapter therefore is to summarise the levels of self-efficacy perceived in relation to teacher’s work on resilience. First, we outline an approach to the concept of self-efficacy within the school context and then present the results of the interview conducted with the sample of participating teachers. The research method was based on the use of a qualitative survey technique. The qualitative analysis of the responses allowed us to establish four categories regarding teachers’ perceived level of self-efficacy: perception of high self-efficacy, perception of low self-efficacy, doubts about their self-efficacy and unspecified perception of self-efficacy. The implications at the educational level of the established categorization will be analysed to clarify the relationship between resilience and teachers’ perceived self-efficacy and to address its work in the classroom.