Background/Purpose A teacher's confidence about being able to influence students' learning, or sense of efficacy, is one of the most well-documented aspects of effective teaching. This study focuses upon preservice teachers' perceptions of their participation in service-learning towards refining understanding of how these experiences foster a sense of efficacy.
Method Subjects (N = 76) took both a “service-learning” course and a non service-learning course within the same teacher preparation program in which both courses were comparable. The primary difference between the two courses was that one included a major community-based service-learning project as a requirement of the course and the other included university laboratory teachings to peers with no community interaction.
Analysis/Results Using a quasi-experimental design with a mixed model repeated measures approach; this study measured pre and post efficacy beliefs of PETE candidates taking both the non service-learning and service-learning methods course. Results indicate that there were significant gains in personal efficacy (F(1) = 7.53, p = .013) and teacher efficacy (F(1) = 4.61, p = .046) for the service-learning course when compared to the non service-learning course. Results also indicate that regardless of which semester the service-learning project took place, gains if efficacy were consistent in the way preservice teachers recorded personal efficacy (F(5) = 1.92, p = .172) and teacher efficacy (F(5) = 1.60, p = .242) scores.
Conclusions This research complements previous research in substantiating that service-learning can indeed foster a sense of efficacy, making strides in uncovering and modeling how service-learning experiences can do this.