Teacher self-efficacy and sociodemographic variables: A study in Peruvian university professors

del Carmen Gonzales-Miñán M. · Interdisciplinaria (2025) · DOI: 10.16888/interd.2025.42.2.12

Resumen

The 21st century presents a great challenge for university education because achieving the highest quality in teaching has become a priority. University educational quality depends on the teaching provided by its professors, with the perception of teacher self-efficacy being a powerful predictor of teacher performance, even better than real skills and knowledge, because good performance requires self-regulatory processes, such as self-assessment, self-monitoring, and mainly an adequate management of disturbing thoughts and emotional reactions, which are positively affected by self-efficacy. For this reason, to ensure that an educational institution is of quality, it is not enough to have the most brilliant teachers, but to make them believe that they are capable of successfully facing challenges. Given the proven positive influence exerted by teacher self-efficacy on the performance of the university professor, and that it is related to various teacher variables, it is necessary to study these variables in order to increase the perception of the construct in the teaching staff. For this reason, the objective of this study was to determine the relationship between the perception of teacher self-efficacy and the sociodemographic variables of the professors of a private Peruvian university in the city of Lima. The sociodemographic variables can be of two types: personal (sex, age and marital status) and professional, which include aspects related to the academic and professional development of the university professor, such as, for example, the age of beginning teaching, the profession of teacher, the number of years of teaching experience, among others. The method of this research considered a quantitative approach and a descriptive-correlational level of research. The sample was obtained through a non-probabilistic sampling resulting in 112 teachers (47 women and 65 men) representing 49% of the population. Two instruments were applied, firstly, a Data Questionnaire in order to collect information about the personal and professional variables of the teachers in the sample. Likewise, for the measurement of the construct, the Teaching Self-efficacy Scale of university professors was applied, made up of 44 items that reflect the most characteristic activities of all university professors, distributed in four dimensions: Teaching planning; Student involvement in learning, Interaction and creation of a positive climate in the classroom; Assessment of student learning and of the teaching function itself (self-assessment). The instrument is answered using a Likert-type scale from 1 to 6 points, ranging from not very capable to very capable. The content validity of the scale yielded inter-rater agreement values higher than.80, by Aiken’s V and a reliability of.971, by Cronbach’s alpha, in the total scale and values between.89 and.92 in its dimensions. To establish the relationship between the variables, the chi-square coefficient, Spearman’s rho and the punctual biserial correlation were applied; finding as a result very low, low and moderate correlations. The main conclusions indicate that women, older teachers, those who are married, those who have pedagogical training, studied a master’s degree or a career in Education/Pedagogy, teachers who started teaching between 30-40 years of age, have between 10 and 30 students, whose dedication is part-time, those in the contracted category or have 1 to 3 investigations, are trained and updated more frequently and those who teach in the professional career of Education and teach between 2 and 3 courses per year, are the teachers who perceive themselves to be more self-efficacious. These results should be considered by those who propose and design teacher training programs in Peruvian universities because, although some variables cannot be manipulated, the study information will help prevent low teacher self-efficacy in university professors and, with it, the opportunity for young people to access a quality university education.

Instituciones: Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya