Unveiling the Teachers' Perceived Self-efficacy to Practice Integrated STrEaM Teaching.

The study was undertaken to examine within a single model the relationships between the teachers' perceived self-efficacy beliefs and their intention to practice STrEaM teaching in the classroom. The acronym STrEaM refers to the expansion of integrated STEM, merging it with a focus on reading, writing, and arts, for connecting the four STEM disciplines. Integrated STrEaM teaching overcomes the prevalent contention that the complexity of the suggested STEM teaching framework encumbers teachers performing cross-disciplinary STEM teaching in the classroom. Science and mathematics teachers who participated in an integrated STrEaM teaching workshop responded to the Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale and a STrEaM Teaching Practice Questionnaire. The data were analyzed using the Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling approach to model the direct relationships between the three sub-scales of self-efficacy (instructional strategies, classroom management, student engagement self-efficacy) and STrEaM teaching practices and indirect moderating effects of location of the school and years of teaching on the relationships. A total of 472 (261 female, 211 male) science and mathematics teachers were included in the analyses. Study results reveal that the three subscales of self-efficacy directly relate to employing STrEaM teaching practices. Location of school (urban/rural) and level of teaching experience did not moderate the relationships between instructional and classroom efficacies and STrEaM teaching practices. However, years of teaching experience moderated the relationship between student engagement efficacy and teaching practice. The model derived from the current study is helpful to guide the policymakers and curriculum developers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]