Volunteering Participation in a Professional Development Initiative on Teachers’ Self-efficacy and Their Perceived Proficiency

This article reports an experimental study on the effect of volunteering on the effectiveness of a professional development initiative involving ۹۰ English teachers. Two training groups were studied at the start of their training and three months later. The only difference between these two groups was in the kind of their participation: volunteers vs. non-volunteers.  A control group of English teachers received no training and was studied in the same way. The evidence is reported on the changes in teachers’ self-reported self-efficacy and their perceived English proficiency based on two measures including teachers’ self-reported proficiency (Chacon, ۲۰۰۵) and Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, ۲۰۰۱). Evidence indicates a range of positive changes in training teachers from the volunteer training group, and contrasting lack of change, or negative changes, in the participants in both the non-volunteer training group and the untrained group.

Keywords:

Perceived proficiency , Professional development , Self-efficacy , Teacher training , Volunteering