Teacher Self-efficacy and Its Antecedents among Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching Trainees of Dilla University: Implications for Ethiopian Secondary School Teacher Education

The purpose of this study was to investigate the level of self-efficacy belief of Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching (PGDT) trainees of Dilla university and identify the factors that affect their belief with the intention of recommending possible improvement strategies to enhance effectiveness of the pre-service teacher education in program. To this end, descriptive survey design was employed because of its suitability for gathering data on attitudes, beliefs and predictions, behavior and experiences both in the past and the present. The study was conducted in Dilla University, Ethiopia on 2017 summer modality prospective graduates of Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching Program. From the total of 568 (161 Female & 407 male) prospective graduates who were attending the program, 112 trainees were selected as a sample using stratified random sampling technique. The results indicated that trainees have marginally average level of efficacy which suggested that they can have only ‘Some influence’ on their students’ learning performance and behavior. It was also found that attitude to teaching (β= .573, t=10.129, p<.01) was the biggest contributor to self-efficacy belief followed by teachers’ professional collaboration in secondary schools (β= .198, t= 5.276, p=.002) and in-campus training practice (β= .146, t=3.201, p<.05) respectively. In contrast to popular expectations, no significant mean difference was observed in trainees’ efficacy scores in terms of their Cumulative Grade Point Average. Based on these findings, it was concluded that trainees’ efficacy with regard to bringing desired impact on secondary school students’ achievement and behavior was not adequate and requires immediate attention. Hence, it was recommended that graduates should be given on-job training and teachers’ professional collaboration in Ethiopian secondary schools should be further strengthened with more emphasis on the affective dimension of the profession.