Developing Teaching Assistant Self-Efficacy through a Pre-Semester Teaching Assistant Orientation K. Andrew R. Richards & Chantal Levesque-Bristol Purdue University, Center for Instructional Excellence Method Overview of the TAO. A TAO at a large, research intensive university served as the site for this investigation. The TAO was a pre-semester, day-long program intended to orient first-time TAs to their roles and responsibilities. The first half of the TAO was coordinated in a large group and the second half took place in small groups broken up by discipline (Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, and Mathematics [STEAM], or Humanities). The large group session focused on 1) motivating students, 2) presentation techniques, and 3) creating an optimal learning environment. The content covered in the small groups included 1) managing the classroom, 2) classroom engagement, 3) planning instruction, and 4) promoting academic integrity. Participants. 421 TAs from all 10 university colleges attended the TAO program. Of these students, 307 (72.92%) provided complete data and were included in the analyses. One hundred and forty-seven (47.72%) of the TAs were United States citizens and 160 (52.11%) were international students. Students were grouped into STEAM (N=198) and Humanities (N=109) groups for data analyses. Instrumentation and Data Collection. Objectives for each session of the TAO were developed. Each of the three large group sessions had one associated objective, and the small group sessions had between two and six objectives. The objectives were transformed into survey questions and set to a five-point, Likert scale. Students were asked to complete the resulting 20-question survey at the beginning and end of the TAO. The post-survey included an additional question intended to measure the summative impact of the TAO. Data Analysis. Indexes of PK objectives were created by averaging the items related to each of the individual TAO sessions (Cronbach’s α ranged from.75 to.88). Data were then analyzed using 1) paired sample t-tests to examine changes pre- to post-TAO, 2) 2x2 (Time x Group) Mixed ANOVAs to examined differences based on subject affiliation and international student status, and 3) path analysis to determine the influence of the TAO on participants’ feelings of self-efficacy for their role as a TA over and above their initial self-efficacy. Rationale and Purpose TAs may possess CK, but lack the PK and PCK required to be effective teachers (Boice, 1996). Based on social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986), teaching-focused professional development may increase both PK and PCK, as well as self-efficacy for teaching (Prieto & Meyers, 1999; Richards et al., 2012). Richards and colleges (2012) found that participation in a college teaching workshop series increased TA self-efficacy to meet PK and PCK objectives. The purpose of this investigation was to understand the impact of participating in a pre-semester teaching assistant orientation (TAO) program on TA self-efficacy to meet PK objectives. Research questions included: 1) what was the impact of the TAO on TA self-efficacy related to PK?, 2) how did change in self-efficacy vary by subject affiliation and international student status?, and 3) did the TAO result in a significant increase in feelings of preparedness for the TA role when controlling for pre-survey self-efficacy? Results – 1. Overall Changes in Self-Efficacy Table 1 provides descriptive statistics for the PK objective indexes at pre- and post-survey administration. TAs perceptions of self-efficacy related to each of the PK objectives increased from pre- to post- survey administration. Overall self-efficacy (aggregate of all items) similarly increased from pre- to post-survey. Paired-samples t-tests were used to determine if changes were statistically significant. All tests were statistically significant: Morning session (t(306)=15.40, p<.001, d=.81), Class Management (t(306)=15.85, p<.001, d=.89), Class Engagement (t(306)=17.21, p<.001, d=1.14), Planning Instruction (t(306)=17.74, p<.001, d=1.05), Academic Integrity (t(306)=18.00, p<.001, d=1.14), and Overall Self-Efficacy (t(306)=21.14, p<.001, d=1.17). Figure 1. Means plot depicting the Time x International Status interaction. Domestic students begin with lower Overall Self-Efficacy, but finish the TAO with higher self-efficacy than international students. Results – 4. Path Analysis Path analysis was conducted to determine the impact of the TAO on feelings of Preparedness for the Role of a TA while taking into account initial Overall self-efficacy. The test of mediation in the path model was performed using the PROCESS add-on for SPSS (Hayes, 2013). PROCESS employs bootstrapping to correct for bias in the estimation of indirect effects. As is depicted in Figure 2, the direct effect of Pre-Survey Self-Efficacy on Preparedness for Role as a TA is not significant (C`=-0.15), but the indirect effects are significant (AB=0.44). The effects of Pre-Survey Self-Efficacy on Preparedness for Role as TA is fully mediated by Post-Survey Self-Efficacy. Introduction Teaching assistant (TA) development programs seek to increase TAs’ ability to use teacher knowledge in practice (Richards et al., 2012). Schulman (1987) defined three forms of teacher knowledge that should be taken into consideration. Content knowledge (CK) is related to discipline-specific information that is conveyed to students. Pedagogical knowledge (PK) refers to the instructor’s knowledge of processes important to teaching, such as lesson planning and managing the classroom environment (Gess-Newsome, 2002). Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) represents the intersection of PK and CK and refers to discipline-specific strategies for conveying information to students (van Driel et al., 1998). Limitations in PK and PCK have a negative impact on instructors’ perceptions of self-efficacy for teaching (Lee & Tsai, 2010). Bandura (1986) defined self-efficacy as the degree to which individuals believe they can generate the behaviors required for certain outcomes. TAs who lack PK and PCK tend to have lower self-efficacy and feel less prepared to teach (Lee & Tsai, 2010). Session Pre-AssessmentPost-Assessment NMSDNM Morning Session* Class Management* Class Engagement* Planning Instruction* Academic Integrity* Overall Self-Efficacy* Table 1. Descriptive statistics for PK objective indexes at pre- and post-survey Note. All t-tests conducted with 306 degrees of freedom, *p<.001 Results – 2. Exploratory Factor Analysis Exploratory factor analysis was conducted in order to investigate whether the workshop objectives estimated one factor related to pedagogy, or multiple factors related to the specific objectives of the different workshop sessions. Results indicated that a single factor structure was appropriate for the data as it explained 42.05% of the variance and adding multiple factors did not explain significantly more variance. Factor loadings for the one factor model were all significant and ranged from 0.53 to Internal consistency for the Overall self-efficacy score was high (Cronbach’s α=.96). As a result, the Overall self-efficacy score was used for Mixed ANOVAs and path analysis. Results – 3. Subgroup Analyses Using the Overall Self-Efficacy index identified using exploratory factor analysis, 2x2 (Time x Group) Mixed ANOVAs were used to determine the influence of TAs’ subject affiliation (STEAM vs. Humanities) and international student status (Domestic vs. International). Descriptive statistics are presented in Table 2. Relative to Subject Affiliation, the main effect for Time was significant (F(1, 305)=434.99, p<.001, partial-η 2 =.588). TAs’ overall self-efficacy increase from pre- to post-survey. The main effect for subject affiliation and the interaction were not significant. For International Status, the main effect for time was significant (F(1,305)=458.52, p<.001) and associated with a large effect size (partial-η 2 =.601). TAs’ overall self-efficacy increased from pre- to post-survey. There was not a significant main effect for international student status, but there was a significant Time x International Student Status interaction (F(1,305)=6.41, p=.012, partial-η 2 =.021). This interaction is displayed graphically in Figure 1 and indicates that domestic students began with lower self-efficacy, but finished higher than international students. Table 2. Descriptive statistics for Overall Self-Efficacy by subject affiliation and international status GroupSubgroup Pre-AssessmentPost-Assessment NMSDNM Subject AffiliationHumanities STEAM International StatusInternational Students Domestic Students Overall Self-Efficacy (Pre-Score) Preparedness for Role as TA Overall Self-Efficacy (Post-Score) A=.44*B=.97* C`=-.15 C=.42* AB=.44* Figure 2. Path model for determining the impact of the TAO on Preparedness for the Role of TA while controlling for initial overall self-efficacy, *p<.001. Discussion Results indicated that self-reported feelings of self-efficacy to implement PK objectives increased through participation in the TAO. While there were no differences between students in the STEAM and Humanities groups, the increase in self-efficacy for domestic students was greater than for international students. Path analysis indicated the TAO increased feelings of preparedness for the role of a TA beyond initial self-efficacy. Thus, TAs benefit from pre-semester orientations in addition to on going programming (see Richards et al., 2013). The study was limited by the self-report nature of the pre- and post-survey design. This design does not provide insight into how TAs use the PK they learn as part of TAO programming. More direct measures of assessment (Brooks et al., 2011) are needed to determine the true impact of TAOs. Future research should also take a more comprehensive approach to analysis that includes data gathered from sources such as participant interviews and direct observations. Longitudinal studies that track TAs beyond TAOs would be especially insightful.