Teacher Self-Efficacy and Resilience With Multilingual Learners: A Rural Secondary Story
An educator’s effectiveness is critical for multilingual learners’ language learning and graduation. Educators of multilingual learners can be assessed for their self-efficacy and resiliency through their pre-service academic background, classroom practice, and community bonds, factors which have been studied by education researchers in California schools. However, there is limited research on educators of multilingual learners who serve rural secondary school sites. While there is a growing number of multilingual learners in rural sites, there is an invisibility of multilingual learners and the educators who serve them in education policy. This study explores the factors that rural Californian secondary educators from two school sites working with multilingual learners in a dual enrollment English language development program describe as contributing to their resiliency and self-efficacy. Furthermore, in this study, rural Californian secondary educators will describe the behavioral, cognitive, and environmental factors that contribute to their resiliency and self-efficacy. This dissertation uses the theoretical framework of triadic reciprocal causation from Alfred Bandura’s (1986) Social Cognitive Theory to identify factors that assist or hurt educators’ attempts to meet the needs of multilingual learners. This study included semi-structured interviews with 20 educators of rural multilingual learners and analyzed data on their self-efficacy and resiliency factors. The most impactful factors on both resiliency and self-efficacy, both positively and negatively, for educators of ML students at these school sites were cognitive factors related to pre-service experience and the environment. Educators reported positive self-efficacy and/or resiliency due to environmental factors including a lack of resources, technology, professional development, and an appropriate curriculum for ML students. Participants reported their teacher self-efficacy (TSE) was largely negative for serving ML student as it is primarily their responsibility (intrinsic/behavior) to become better educators. Resiliency among educators of ML students was higher when considering their confidence in their teaching experience, access to some educational resources, reliance on the rural community, and connection to other educators of rural ML students. Recommendations are provided for future professional development, structuring of preservice programs for future educators of rural MLs, and broader support of rural ML communities by their policy makers.
English language development, Resiliency, Secondary school, Self-efficacy, Triadic reciprocal causation, Multilingual learner, Education
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