Teachers´, school staff and parents´ efficacy beliefs as determinants of attitude toward school

Self- and collective efficacy beliefs were examined as correlates of attitudes toward school of teachers, school staff, and parents. 726 teachers, 387 staff members, and 1994 parents from 18 junior high schools in Milan and Rome, Italy, were administered questionnaires assessing self-efficacy beliefs, perceptions about colleagues' competence, collective efficacy beliefs, affective commitment and job satisfaction of teachers and school staff and parents’ satisfaction with school. Path analyses corroborated a conceptual model in which self- and collective efficacy beliefs represent, respectively, the distal and proximal determinants of affective commitment and job satisfaction for teachers and staff and of satisfaction with school for parents. Perceptions that teachers, staff and parents hold about the competence of their colleagues largely mediated the links between self- and collective efficacy beliefs. Collective efficacy beliefs, in turn, largely mediated the influence that self-efficacy beliefs and perceptions of school constituencies’ competence exert on attitudes toward school of teachers, staff and parents.