The Teacher Sense of Self Efficacy (TSES) Survey was selected as
the partnership’s measurement tool for the teacher self-efficacy
construct for several reasons (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001).
First, the TSES survey has three scales: efficacy for instructional
practices, student engagement, and classroom management. These
scales were considered in good alignment to both the partnership’s
defined teacher self-efficacy construct and complimentary to other
areas of the theory of change (i.e. focus on student engagement and
instructional strategies that are specific to both higher-order
thinking skills and conceptual knowledge). Second, the TSES
survey meets the criteria for high fidelity to self-efficacy theory as
outlined above with one exception. The current version of the TSES
is subject general. In their review of research literature, Klassen
et al. (2011) report ‘‘only modest empirical support’’ for a
relationship between teacher efficacy and student outcomes. Sixty
percent of the studies in their review focused on teachers’ subjectgeneral
efficacy, therefore, the lack of a strong relationship could
be due to the subject-general teacher self-efficacy instrumentation.
Therefore, the partnership has amended the survey items on
the instructional practices and student engagement scales to be
subject-specific for the STEM disciplines. The classroom management
scale was left subject general because it has been noted that
classroom management skills are not specific to the subject being
taught (Shulman, 1987).