Collective Efficacy: What It Is
(Delta News Hub, 2020)
“Collective efficacy is about the belief that, together, we can make a difference to the students we teach, no matter what” (Hargreaves, 2018, p. 110).
While teaching can often be a solitary and sometimes isolating experience, collective efficacy practices encourage teambuilding that focuses on teachers working together to positively impact the learning of their students.
What Is Collective Efficacy?
Collective efficacy was first explored by Albert Bandura, a psychologist at Stanford University in the 1970s. He found that group members’ higher confidence in the group’s abilities had positive correlations to group success (Bandura, 1997). In other words, the confidence members place in the group’s ability to succeed positively impacts the group’s performance. Following Bandura’s initial reports, additional studies related to collective efficacy have been conducted with findings that support its high impact on community and neighborhood initiatives, in business environments, and in education (Donohoo, 2018; Ells, 2011; Hattie, 2009).
Bandura defined collective efficacy as "a group's shared belief in its conjoint capability to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given levels of attainment" (Bandura, 1997, p. 477).
Self-fulfilling prophecy is a common way to explain the concept of collective efficacy. In a group or team, self-fulfilling prophecy is the idea that if the team believes that they can or that they can't do something, then they will put supports or barriers in place that will influence that predicted outcome.
(GoDuke.com, 2022)
Four Factors Impacting Collective Efficacy
According to Bandura (1997), there are four factors critical to the formation of efficacy: mastery experiences, social persuasion, vicarious experience, and affective states. These factors work together to inform individual perspectives as well as collective perspectives about a group’s abilities.
Collective Efficacy and Teachers
Read this article about collective efficacy and its connection to teaching. Although brief, the information provides a summary that will lead to better understanding of the next page of this module, Why Is It Important.