Relations among teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, engagement, and work satisfaction: A social cognitive view

Although recent research has examined the links between (a) teacher self-efficacy and teacher engagement and (b) teacher engagement and job satisfaction, comparatively little is known about the longitudinal interplay among teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, work engagement, and job satisfaction. Using short-term longitudinal data from almost 600 teachers, we redress this gap in the literature by examining a social cognitive reciprocal-effects model linking teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, engagement, and satisfaction directly and indirectly. Results of fully-latent simultaneous equations analyses, establishing requisite levels of longitudinal measurement invariance, showed that teacher self-efficacy and work engagement were reciprocally linked over time. Teacher work engagement and job satisfaction were also found to be reciprocally linked over time. In addition, reciprocal indirect relations were obtained, such that (a) initial teacher self-efficacy predicted later work satisfaction via engagement and (b) initial work satisfaction predicted later teacher self-efficacy via engagement. Notably, the directional and reverse directional pathways constituting these reciprocal relations were found to be equal, suggesting that these constructs are mutually reinforcing in the motivational process shaping teachers’ capability beliefs, engagement, and satisfaction at work. Notably, all predictive effects were observed while accounting for prior variance in outcomes as well as the predictive effects of other substantive variables. The present findings contribute to understandings of the motivational processes underlying teachers’ development of their capability self-beliefs, engagement, and satisfaction at work.