1 Introduction
1.1Research Background
In the 1970s，the studies of psychology have made a transition from behavioral science tocognitive science. There exists a new trend of teachers' research, that is, a transition from theformation of teachers' behavior to teachers' view about their ability in the teaching process, aswell as the interaction between teachers' self-awareness, self-evaluation, and the developmentof their students, and how these three factors influence teacher's teaching behavior. On thepractical level，people have gradually realized that the concept of education is the inherentbasis and foundation of teaching programs; it will directly determine teachers' basic attitude,teaching strategies, teaching methods, and ultimately affect the development of their students.In the field of teacher research，researchers have paid great attention to teachers' awareness oftheir own ability，grasping the educational work，and the effect on their self-development.Especially，they focus on teachers' perception and evaluation of their effects on education, andthe relationship between self-perception, self-evaluation，and student development. The studyshowed that the closest link between the education and student development is teacher's ownabilities, especially the belief to influence their students' development, judgment, and self-perception, namely teacher efficacy.Since 1970s, researchers from abroad have conducted researches in the area of teacherefficacy. These studies contain the definition of teacher efficacy，its construction, itsmeasurements，and its influencing factors，and so on. Researchers found that basically therewere three kinds of efficacy, i.e. student's self-efficacy，teacher sense of efficacy，and schoolcollective efficacy (Ross，1992; Tschaimen-Moran，Woolfolk-Hoy & Hoy，1998; Goddard,2004). Among the three kinds of efficacy，teachers' sense of efficacy is the center of theinvestigation.
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1.2Aim and Value of the Study
The overall aim of the present research is to explore the teacher efficacy of preserviceEnglish teachers. The specific research objectives are as follows: (1) to describe the generaltendency of preservice English teachers' teacher efficacy; (2) to analyze the variations ofpreservice English teachers' teacher efficacy in terms of gender，school level and school typewhich they take into practice, and the willingness to choose teacher as their profession; (3) toreveal the predictability of preservice English teachers' teacher efficacy and thus identify thebest predictor of preservice English teachers' teacher efficacy.
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2 Literature Review
2.1 Theoretical Study of Teacher Efficacy
In this part, the author wants to introduce the teacher efficacy theory. There are twotheoretical frameworks of teacher efficacy. The first strand is grounded in Rotter's sociallearning theory, and second strand is based on Bandura's social cognitive theoiy. And theresearches about teacher efficacy are all based on these two theoretical frameworks. In the firstplace, the author reviews the definition of teacher efficacy from various aspects. And thenmakes a brief introduction on the development of both teacher efficacy theory andmeasurements. To compare similarities and disparities in defining teacher efficacy，the author takesseveral definitions from the literature. The operational expression of teacher efficacy is alsoknown as teacher sense of efficacy or teacher efficacy belief.In 1976，researchers of RAND Corporation realized that teacher efficacy could wellreflect teachers' belief in teaching, and they termed teacher efficacy as “teacher believed thatthey could control the reinforcement of their action，that is，whether control of reinforcementlay within themselves or in the environment".Berman (1977) defined teacher efficacy as "the extent to which the teacher believes he orshe has the capacity to affect student performance".
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2.2 Empirical Study on Teacher Efficacy
Generally speaking, the aforementioned literature we have discussed belongs to thetheoretical study. In this section, we will pay attention to the empirical studies on teacherefficacy at home and abroad. Armor (1976) made a report of “Analysis of the school preferred reading programs inselected Los Angeles minority schools", which marks the start of researches on teacher efficacy.By reviewing a number of literatures, the empirical studies mainly focus on the following twoareas: (1) researches on the relationship between inservice teachers' teacher efficacy and theirbehavior; (2) researches on the relationship between teacher efficacy and student performance. Teacher efficacy proved to be related to teacher behavior in different aspects，includingclassroom management (Ashton & Webb, 1982; Emmer and Hickman, 1990; Morris-Rothschild and Brassard，2006)，teachers' commitment to teaching activities (Trentham,Silvern & Brogdon，1985; Evans & Tribble，1986; Coladarci，1992)，teachers' burnout (Piggand Marso，1993; Hughes,!992; Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy and Hoy, 1998), andimplementation of instructional innovations (Allinder, 1994; Ross，1994).According to Bandura's self-efficacy theory, teacher efficacy is a mediator which has themotivational function. Teachers with a strong teacher efficacy tend to exhibit more humanity intheir classroom control rather than custodial (Woolfolk and Hoy; 1990)，show greatercommitment to their teaching (Evans & Tribble, 1986; Reames & Spencer, 1998; Coladarci,1992)，and are more likely to stay in teaching field (Milner，2002; Looney & Wentzel, 2004)，cause a lower level of burnout (Pigg and Marso, 1993; Woolfolk Hoy& Hoy，1998)，morewillingness to implementing effective and new teaching practices (Ghaith and Yaghi，1997;Berman, Mclanghlin, Bass, Pauly & Zellman，1977; Guskey，1981; Smylie，1988).
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3Research Methodology............23
3.1Research Questions..........23
3.2Participants..........23
3.3Pilot Study..........24
3.4Instruments..........24
3.4.1Cronbach's Alpha Coefficient..........25
3.4.2Factor Analysis..........25
3.5Data Analysis Procedure..........28
3.6Summary..........28
4Results and Discussion..........29
4.1 General Tendency and Variations..........29
4.2The Influences of Educational Practices ..........34
4.2.1Educational Practices..........35
4.2.2Teaching Ejqieriences..........36
4.3Factor of Variations..........38
4.3.1Regression Models..........38
4.3.2Best Predictor..........40
4.4Summary..........40
5 Conclusion...........42
4 Results and Discussion
4.1 General Tendency and Variations
The first question of the present study focused on the description of preservice Englishteachers' teacher efficacy. First of all，the general tendency of preservice English Teachers' wasdescribed though analyzing the means of two categories of teacher efficacy. And next,independent sample T-test was used to examine whether there were significant differences inpreservice English teachers in terms of gender，school level and school type to take intopractice，and the willingness to choose teacher as their profession. The general tendency of preservice English teachers' teacher efficacy was describedthough analyzing the means of the two categories of teacher efficacy. The means and standarddeviations of the two types of teacher efficacy employed by participates are displayed in table4-1.
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Conclusion
This chapter mainly concentrates on the summary of the major research findings, putsforward limitations of the research and makes recommendations for future researches.The major research findings can be concluded in the following three aspects. (1)Preservice teachers' general teaching efficacy is higher than their personal teaching efficacy.Because of preservice teachers are more willing to believe the power of education, rather thantheir own ability to promote their students' behavior successfully. Moreover, there is significantdifference in preservice teachers' personal teaching efficacy in terms of level and type ofteaching school and willingness to choose teacher as their profession. In addition, there is nosignificant difference in preservice teachers' teacher efficacy in terms of gender，andwillingness. (2) For preservice teachers, educational experiences seem to be nothing butobstacle in prompting their teacher efficacy in both personal teaching efficacy and generalteaching efficacy. And for the level of overall teacher efficacy, six months of teachingexperience is suitable for preservice teachers to acquire teaching knowledge and improve theirteacher efficacy. (3) There are only three variables which can predict preservice Englishteachers' teacher efficacy in the present study. They are score of TEM-8，willingness to choosenormal college, and teaching experiences. And teaching experiences can be the best predictorof preservice English teachers' teacher efficacy.
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Reference (omitted)