Self-Efficacy as a Predictor of Teaching Competence: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Self-efficacy and teacher competence are two closely related aspects of psychology and professional constructs that define the effectiveness of a teacher. This meta-analysis examines the relationship between Teaching Competence and Self-efficacy. Through a systematic literature review, 16 empirical studies with a combined sample of 6248 teachers from diverse geographical and educational contexts were included. Individual study correlations between self-efficacy and teaching competence are found to vary from small positive correlations (r = 0.096) to very strong positive correlations (r = 0.930). A random-effect model was used to find out the combined correlation, which revealed r = 0.51, with a 95% confidence interval extending from 0.35 to 0.65. According to Cohen's (1988) conventional effect size benchmarks, this magnitude indicates a large positive association between these constructs. The heterogeneity statistics reveal very substantial between-study variability, which led to an exploration of the moderating variables. Subgroup analysis reveals that the in-service teachers exhibited a slightly higher correlation (r = 0.53) than the pre-service teachers (r = 0.48), which may indicate that the interrelation of self-efficacy and competence as a teacher may increase with the overall professional experience and classroom practice. Thus, the teacher training programme must focus on the enhancement of self-efficacy that has a positive effect on teacher competency.