ARTICLE IN PRESS

Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934

www.elsevier.com/locate/tate

Motivation beliefs of secondary school teachers in Canada

and Singapore: A mixed methods study
Robert M. Klassena,, Wan Har Chongb, Vivien S. Huanb, Isabella Wongb,
Allison Katesa, Wanwisa Hannoka
a
Department of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2G5
b
Singapore National Institute of Education, Singapore

Received 22 June 2007; received in revised form 20 December 2007; accepted 16 January 2008

Abstract

A mixed methods approach was used to explore secondary teachers’ motivation beliefs in Canada and Singapore.
Results from Study 1 revealed that socio-economic status (SES) was the strongest predictor of school climate in Canada,
and that collective efficacy mediated the effect of SES on school climate in Singapore, but not in Canada. In Study 2,
interviews were conducted with 10 teachers in Canada and 14 teachers in Singapore. Teachers in both settings discussed
students’ social and behavior problems, but the range of the social problems was greater in Canada than in Singapore, and
had a stronger impact on teachers’ motivation beliefs.
r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Teacher motivation; Cross-cultural; Self-efficacy; Mixed methods; Canada; Singapore

1. Introduction 2004; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001).

Teaching is a demanding job in all cultures, and
what teachers believe about their capabilities affects
how successful they are in meeting daily challenges.
Considerable recent research has explored teachers’
self- and collective efficacy beliefs, and how these
beliefs influence student achievement, job satisfac-
tion, and perceptions of school academic climate
(e.g., Caprara, Barbaranelli, Borgogni, & Steca,
2003; Caprara, Barbaranelli, Steca, & Malone,
2006; Goddard, 2001; Tschannen-Moran & Barr,
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 780 492 9170;
fax: +1 780 492 1318.
E-mail address: robert.klassen@ualberta.ca (R.M. Klassen).
However, little research has explored how teachers’
efficacy beliefs operate outside of culturally western
settings. We believe that teachers’ beliefs in their
self- and collective efficacy reflect motivational
beliefs that have universal relevance, but this
hypothesis has been little tested. In this article
we explore how teachers’ motivation beliefs—
self-efficacy and perceived collective efficacy—are
related to teachers’ perceptions of academic climate,
and also how socio-economic status (SES) is related
to teachers’ motivation in two contrasting cultural
settings—Canada and Singapore. In order to best
understand the complex relationships between
teacher motivation, SES, and academic climate
across cultures, we used a mixed methods approach
in which we strove to examine general principles

0742-051X/$ - see front matter r 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tate.2008.01.005
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1920 R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934
and specific examples relating to teachers’ motiva-
tion across cultures.
1.1. Efficacy beliefs and academic climate
Teacher efficacy research dates back to the studies
carried out by the RAND organization in the mid-
1970s, when two survey items were created to
investigate teachers’ beliefs in their ability to
influence student achievement (Tschannen-Moran,
Woolfolk Hoy, & Hoy, 1998). Gibson and Dembo’s
(1984) influential measure of teacher efficacy built
on the RAND measure, and consisted of two
factors, one measuring personal teaching efficacy—
essentially teachers’ self-efficacy—and the other
measuring general teaching efficacy—teachers’ assess-
ment of the influence of environmental obstacles.
Concern with conceptual and theoretical weaknesses
in the Gibson and Dembo measure led to creation
of a number of new teacher efficacy measures, one
of which—the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale—was
created by Tschannen-Moran and colleagues in the
last decade to reflect greater conceptual congruence
with the theoretical tenets of self-efficacy theory
(Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001; Tschan-
nen-Moran et al., 1998). The measure has been
investigated in American settings (e.g., Knobloch &
Whittington, 2002; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk
Hoy, 2001; Wolters & Daugherty, 2007), but not in
cross-cultural settings.
Teachers’ motivation beliefs have been the focus
of recent research, with considerable attention paid
to the role of teachers’ self- and collective efficacy.
Bandura (1997) defines self-efficacy as beliefs in the
capabilities to successfully carry out a particular
course of action, and a large body of research
supports the claim that self-efficacy is an important
influence on human achievement in a wide variety of
settings, including education, health, sports, and
work (Bandura, 1997). In educational contexts,
extensive research has shown that students’ self-
efficacy plays an important role in influencing
achievement and behavior, but there is increasing
evidence that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs also play
a key role in influencing student achievement,
through increasing teachers’ confidence that they
can manage their classroom and provide effective
instruction for all students. Self-efficacy influences a
teacher’s persistence, enthusiasm, commitment, and
teaching behavior, and has been found to influence
student achievement and teachers’ job satisfaction
(Caprara et al., 2006; Tschannen-Moran &
Woolfolk Hoy, 2001).
Collective efficacy is defined as ‘‘a group’s shared
beliefs in its conjoint capabilities to organize and
execute the courses of action required to produce
given levels of attainments’’ (Bandura, 1997, p. 477).
Teachers’ collective efficacy refers to beliefs that a
school staff as a group is collectively able to
influence student outcomes, even in challenging
conditions. Goddard (2001) called teachers’ collec-
tive efficacy a ‘‘neglected construct’’ in educational
research (p. 467), and found that collective efficacy
significantly predicted student achievement, even
after controlling for prior achievement and demo-
graphic characteristics. Measurement of collective
beliefs can prove challenging. Bandura (1997)
suggests that individual assessments of group
capabilities offer a more valid form of measurement
than aggregating individuals’ self-efficacy beliefs, or
seeking a group consensus of the group’s efficacy,
since individuals within the same group may differ
on how they view their group’s efficacy. Because the
purpose of this study was to investigate the
relationship of within-teacher motivation factors—
that is, teachers’ beliefs in their self- and collective
efficacy and their perceptions of academic climate—
we measured teachers’ individual perceptions of
their collective efficacy beliefs rather than at the
school level. We were also interested in linking
teachers’ collective efficacy beliefs with another
variable concerned with perceptions of school
functioning—academic climate.
Although school characteristics like family back-
ground or SES have proven to be key factors in
predicting student achievement, a school’s academic
climate, defined as the extent to which a school
is driven by a quest for academic excellence (Hoy,
Tarter, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2006), or as the relation-
ship between school and students (Hoy, Smith, &
Sweetland, 2002) has also been shown to be strongly
related to student achievement in elementary school,
middle school, and secondary school settings. This
press for academic achievement is an especially
important variable in schools in disadvantaged
economic settings—Hoy et al. (2006) show that
academic climate, together with teachers’ collective
efficacy and faculty trust in parents and students,
form a construct that they call academic optimism,
which influences school norms and behavioral
expectations beyond the influence of demographic
factors like SES. A teacher’s perception of his or her
school’s academic climate influences instructional
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934
choices made and the confidence that he or she
will be able to reach even the most challenging
students.
1.2. Cross-cultural teacher efficacy research
Most teacher self- and collective efficacy studies
to date have been conducted in a single, usually
culturally Western setting, with no attention paid to
how efficacy constructs operate in diverse cultural
contexts. Ho and Hau (2004) conducted what might
be the only study designed to explore practicing
teachers’ self-efficacy across cultures. In their study
investigating teacher efficacy in Hong Kong and
Australia, the authors found that Australian tea-
chers rated their self-efficacy higher in all areas, but
their otherwise excellent study did not explore
outcome variables like perceptions of school aca-
demic emphasis, and the measure of teachers’ self-
efficacy used in the study (Gibson & Dembo, 1984)
is theoretically suspect (for problems with the
Gibson and Dembo scales, and other scales derived
from early teacher efficacy measures, see Tschannen-
Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001). Gorrell and
colleagues (Gorrell & Hwang, 1995; Lin, Gorrell,
& Taylor, 2002) conducted a pair of studies
investigating teacher training students’ self-efficacy
in Korea, Taiwan, and the United States, but their
studies used the same conceptually flawed Gibson
and Dembo (1984) measure, and did not explore
the motivation beliefs of practicing teachers. Their
cross-cultural comparison of Taiwanese and American
education undergraduates found that American
education students had higher-efficacy beliefs than
Taiwanese education students, a finding they
attributed to ‘‘conceptually different expectations
for teaching’’ (Lin et al., 2002, p. 43). To our
knowledge no studies have explored teachers’
collective efficacy across cultures. Cross-cultural
comparisons are useful in building theory because
they provide researchers with ‘‘a valuable heuristic
basis to test the external validity and generalizability
of their measures, theories, and models’’ (Marsh &
Hau, 2004, p. 59). One of the characteristics of a
growing psychological theory is the attention it
receives in contexts removed from its origins, and
the extent to which the theory is valid across
settings.
The purpose of this study is to explore how
teacher motivation operates in two contrasting
cultures—Canada and Singapore. It is hard to think
of two more divergent settings: Canada is large,
1921
northern, and relatively sparsely populated, with
a majority of the population from an Anglo/
European background, and an increasingly multi-
cultural population. Approximately 19% of Cana-
dians are born outside of Canada, with the largest
groups self-identifying as ‘‘Multiple origins’’ [15%],
‘‘Chinese’’ [13%], British [9%], and ‘‘East Indian’’
[7%] (Mulder & Korenic, 2005). Singapore is a
small, densely populated city state, equatorial, and
is populated by people largely from Chinese (75%),
Malay (14%), and Indian (8%) cultural back-
grounds (Singapore Infomap, 2007). The education
systems in the two countries are free and universal,
but differ in terms of curriculum, performance on
international comparisons, and cultural dimensions.
English is the usual language of instruction in both
settings, but the education system in Singapore is
centrally regulated, with secondary schools that
are streamed according to student ability level.
The education system in Canada is provincially
regulated, with secondary schools that are usually
comprehensive, with a range of in-school academic
streams. Schools and students in Canada and
Singapore participate in a variety of international
indicators of educational achievement (e.g., Pro-
gram for International Student Assessment, and
Trends in International Mathematics and Science
Study [TIMSS]), but direct comparisons are rare
because the countries do not always partici-
pate in the same international rankings at the same
data collection phase. The 1999 TIMSS report
revealed grade 8 students from Singapore as
the highest-ranking students in mathematics from
38 countries (Canada ranked 10th), and second
highest in science, whereas Canada ranked 14th
(Robitaille & Taylor, 2001). The city and province
in which we collected our Canadian data typically
score higher than the Canadian mean on intra-
Canadian academic comparisons, although the
city includes a wide range of schools, from low
to high SES. According to Hofstede’s cultural
dimensions, Canada ranks higher in individualism
than Singapore, and lower on power distance
(Hofstede, 1980). Both countries are relatively
economically prosperous, and comparison data
show similar levels of school enrollment, per capita
gross national income, and life expectancy in
Canada and Singapore (World Bank, 2007). In
our study, we first explore quantitative comparative
data on teacher motivation, and then extend
our findings through collecting in-depth qualitative
data.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1922 R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934
1.3. Mixed methods research
Using a mixed methods approach provides the
researcher with the opportunity to capture both
the trends and the details of a situation (Creswell
& Plano Clark, 2007), and to add depth and context
to quantitative results. Mixed methods appro-
aches are particularly beneficial in cross-cultural
research, because they draw from the strengths of
quantitative (i.e., large sample size, prediction, and
generalizability) and qualitative approaches (i.e.,
description, depth, and contextualized findings),
and minimize the weaknesses inherent in mono-
method paradigms (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie,
2004). In addition, there have been very few
inquiries into teacher efficacy that have strayed
beyond quantitative questionnaire research, and
alternative research paradigms, like qualitative
and mixed methods approaches, are needed to
extend and deepen understanding of the construct
(Henson, 2002; Labone, 2004). Although some
methodologists reject combining research approaches
due to inherent incompatibilism, we take a pragmatic
stance that bridges research paradigms, and is
inclusive, pluaralistic, and focuses on the best way
of answering research questions (Tashakkori &
Teddlie, 1998).
Our mixed methods study uses a one-phase
embedded design with qualitative data collected to
provide support and explanation for the quantita-
tive findings. We began by collecting quantitative
self-report survey data from a large number of
teachers in Canada and Singapore, and concur-
rently collected qualitative interview data from a
smaller number of participants in the two countries.
Embedded designs aim to address a single research
problem from two different perspectives, and results
in findings that are generalizable and replicable, but
that also highlight a lived experience perspective
often lacking in strictly quantitative studies. We
characterize this study as a QUAN+qual design
with primary emphasis given to the quantitative
data collection, analysis, and interpretation; and
secondary emphasis given to the explanatory
qualitative inquiry (see Creswell & Plano Clark,
2007; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). The purpose
of our study was not primarily to explore differences
in levels of teachers’ motivation beliefs, but to probe
similarities and differences in the relationships
among the variables, and to examine how teachers
in Canada and Singapore understand their indivi-
dual and group motivation, school climate, and the
role of socio-economic factors. Our research ques-
tions included, What are the relationships among
teachers’ motivation beliefs, student SES, and per-
ceived school climate across two cultures? and, What
do teachers say about their motivation beliefs, the role
of student factors, and academic climate in Canada
and Singapore?
2. Study 1
In Study 1, we used a survey to explore Canadian
and Singaporean secondary teachers’ motivation
beliefs, and how these beliefs influence their
perceptions of school academic climate. In addition,
we were interested in finding out if the influence
of student SES on perceptions of academic climate
would be mediated by teachers’ motivation beliefs.
2.1. Method
2.1.1. Participants
Participants were 502 secondary teachers from
Canada (255) and Singapore (247) who completed a
50-item survey on motivation beliefs. Canadian
teachers were 54% female, with a mean age of 38.90
(SD ¼ 11.07), 12.85 years of experience (SD ¼ 10.22),
and taught in public secondary schools (82%) or
in other combinations of multi-graded settings that
included secondary and elementary or secondary
and junior high ages (18%). Most of the Canadian
teachers were born in Canada (94%) and described
ethnic heritage as Anglo-Canadian (47%), Eur-
opean Canadian (29%), French Canadian (7%),
East Asian Canadian (2%), and other/no response
(15%). Teachers from Singapore were 63% female
with a mean age of 35.76 (SD ¼ 9.70), 10.46 years
of experience (SD ¼ 10.29), and taught in secondary
schools described as ‘‘government’’ (54%), ‘‘auton-
omous’’ (44%), and not indicated (2%). Schools in
Singapore are streamed according to student ability
level. We stratified our Singapore data collection to
ensure that participants would represent teachers
from the full range of school streams. The sample
included representatives from the highest ability
‘‘Special’’ stream (11%), high-ability ‘‘Express’’
stream (28%), and the average and lower-ability
‘‘Normal’’ and ‘‘Normal Technical’’ streams (33%),
with 31% not identified. Most of the Singaporean
teachers were born in Singapore (89%) or Malaysia
(6%), and described ethnic heritage as Asian (98%).
Participants from Canada were volunteers
who were attending a compulsory urban–suburban
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934
multi-district teachers’ conference. As part of the
agreement with conference organizers and provin-
cial education authorities, we did not ask for
teachers to indicate their school, but based on
conference attendance data, it is estimated that
participants represented approximately 40 second-
ary schools. Teachers who attended the conference
were approached in a display hall and asked to
complete a brief survey on teacher motivation.
Teachers completed the surveys at a display booth
in the display hall, and it is estimated that 80% of
teachers approached at the conference completed
the survey. Because the conference was a compul-
sory event, and because of our high response rate,
we believe the sample is representative of secondary
teachers in one Western Canadian metropolitan
region. Teachers in Singapore were volunteers from
11 schools selected to represent the range of schools
in that setting, with an estimated participation
rate of 95% of teachers who were asked to
participate. Singapore is a ‘‘city state’’ where all of
the schools are considered urban–suburban. Be-
cause schools were chosen to represent the full range
of schools and students, we believe the teachers
form a representative sample of teachers in Singapore.
Surveys in both countries were completed in
English, which is the main language of instruction
in both countries.
2.1.2. Measures
We used reliable and well-validated measures
of teachers’ self-efficacy (Tschannen-Moran &
Woolfolk Hoy, 2001), teacher collective efficacy
(Tschannen-Moran & Barr, 2004), and academic
climate (Sweetland & Hoy, 2000). SES was mea-
sured by teacher report in response to a question
that asked, ‘‘Socio-economic status of the majority
of your students? (family income level compared to
most people in your city)’’ with a five-point scale.
The self-efficacy measure was created and validated
by Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2001),
and contained 12 items. Participants responded
using a nine-point response scale, anchored by
‘‘1 ¼ Nothing’’ to ‘‘9 ¼ A great deal’’ (e.g., ‘‘How
much can you do to help students value learning?’’).
The 12-item teachers’ collective efficacy measure
assessed teachers’ perceptions of their colleagues’
capabilities to influence student learning. Partici-
pants responded on a nine-point scale, anchored
at 1 by ‘‘Nothing’’ and at 9 by ‘‘A great deal’’
(e.g., ‘‘How much can teachers in your school
do to promote deep understandings of academic
1923
concepts?’’). Academic climate was measured using
eight items with a nine-point scale, anchored at
either end by ‘‘Rarely occurs’’ and ‘‘Very frequently
occurs’’ (e.g., ‘‘The school sets high standards for
academic performance’’). Previous studies have
shown academic climate to be a reliable and valid
measure of school academic atmosphere (e.g., Hoy
et al., 2002).
Although several studies have assessed collective
efficacy and academic climate with school as the
unit of analysis, for the purposes of this study we
treated these variables as individual perceptions of
collective variables. For example, teachers’ collec-
tive efficacy can be aggregated to represent a group-
level variable, or can be treated as an individual’s
perception of their school environment. Group
variables also operate as individual psychological
variables; i.e., a person’s perception of their school’s
academic climate influences teachers at both an
individual psychological level and at a group level.
A teacher may interpret a school staff’s capabilities
or school climate very differently than another
teacher in the same school. Although collective
beliefs emerge from group interaction, they are
processed and interpreted individually. We were
interested in teachers’ individual understandings of
these group variables, and how these individual
understandings might operate differently across
countries.
Our analyses in Study 1 were designed to explore
differences in levels of the key variables across the
two countries, and to explore the within-country
relationships among teachers’ self-efficacy, collec-
tive efficacy, and perceived academic climate. We
also wished to explore whether teacher’s self-
efficiency (TSE) and teacher’s collective efficiency
(TCE) would mediate the relationship between SES
and perceived academic climate in each country.
Before we carried out cross-group comparisons and
within-country comparisons, we used confirmatory
factor analysis (CFA) to explore the adequacy of
the fit of the TSE, TCE, and academic climate
models to the data in each group. For cross-cultural
studies, a stable measurement factor structure
across groups suggests construct validity, and
allows for meaningful discussion about group
differences (Yin & Fan, 2003).
3. Results
Reliability coefficients for all variables were above
.80 (range .80–.92) in both settings. Multi-group CFA
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1924 R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934

using AMOS 7.0 (Arbuckle, 2006) was used to
explore the theoretically derived factor structure of
the self- and collective efficacy and school climate
variables. Because the intention of this article was to
explore predictors of school climate across cultures,
and not to fully test measurement equivalence of
each of the measures, we tested each measure only
for equivalence of factor structure, and not for strict
factorial invariance, wherein indicator means and
indicator variances would be constrained across
groups.
Table 1 presents model fit data, which were
assessed through the adequacy of goodness-of-fit
indicators (w2, w2/df ratio, comparative fit index
[CFI], and root-mean-square error of approxi-
mation [RMSEA]). We followed the reasoning of
Byrne (2004) who argued that error covariances
should be allowed to be correlated differently in
different groups in order to obtain good model fit.
Modification indices were consulted to identify
model misspecification. Comparisons between the
initial models and the baseline models showed that
freeing one or more error covariances substantially
improved model fit for each measure for each
group. The proposed three factor model for
teachers’ self-efficacy, two factor model for tea-
chers’ collective efficacy, and one factor model
for academic climate fit the data reasonably well
across groups, with multiple group invariance fit
statistics in an acceptable range (i.e., w2/df ratio o3;
CFI 4.90; RMSEAo.08). After establishing struc-
tural invariance across groups, we proceeded to
explore the levels and relationships among the
variables.
Table 2 presents means, standard deviations,
and effect sizes for the four composite variables
of interest, and also includes item content and
item means and standard deviations for each
measure. We used multivariate analysis of variance
with country and sex as independent variables to
compare levels of perceived academic climate,
teachers’ self-efficacy, teachers’ collective efficacy,
and student SES. Using Wilk’s criterion, significant
differences were seen for country F(4, 482) ¼ 56.19,
po.001, Z2 ¼ .32, but not for sex F(4, 482) ¼ 1.47,
p ¼ .21, nor was the country  sex interaction
significant F(4, 482) ¼ 2.29, p ¼ .06. Teachers in
Canada rated their self-efficacy, collective efficacy,

Table 1
Cross-cultural equivalence of academic climate, teachers’ self-efficacy and collective efficacy

Canadian teachers (N ¼ 255) Singaporean teachers (N ¼ 247) Multi-

group
Original Baseline Original Baseline baseline
model
(N ¼ 502)

Academic climate
df 20 17 20 15 40
w2 116.35 45.12 134.67 45.97 91.10
w2/df ratio 5.8 2.6 6.7 3.1 2.8
CFI .86 .96 .88 .97 .97
RMSEA .14 .08 .15 .09 .06
Freed error covariances (d1,6, d4,7, d6,8) (d1,2, d2,3, d3,5, d4,6, d1,6)
Teachers’ self-efficacy
df 51 50 51 50 100
w2 107.9 83.85 121.15 100.30 183.88
w2/df ratio 2.1 1.7 2.4 2.0 1.84
CFI .95 .97 .97 .98 .97
RMSEA .07 .05 .08 .06 .04
Freed error covariances (d11,12) (d11,12)
Collective efficacy
df 53 49 53 47 96
w2 225.23 119.42 304.25 147.59 267.02
w2/df ratio 4.3 2.4 5.7 3.1 2.8
CFI .88 .95 .89 .96 .96
RMSEA .11 .07 .14 .09 .06
Freed error covariances (d5,8, d6,9, d9,11, d3,4) (d1,2, dd5,6, d1,3, d3,4, d4,8, d11,10)
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934 1925

Table 2
Means, standard deviations, and effect sizes for academic climate, TSE, TCE, and SES

Canada Singapore
(N ¼ 255) (N ¼ 247)

M SD M SD Z2

Academic climate 49.15 9.50 48.92 8.58 –

The school sets high standards for academic performance 7.31 1.55 7.15 1.32
Students respect others who get good grades 6.46 1.54 6.31 1.42
Students seek extra work so they can get good grades 4.76 1.98 5.53 1.55
Parents exert pressure to maintain high standards 5.60 1.99 5.64 1.53
Students try hard to improve on previous work 5.19 1.73 5.28 1.45
Academic achievement is recognized and acknowledged by the school 7.44 1.45 7.16 1.36
Parents press for school improvement 5.29 2.09 5.92 1.45
Students in this school can achieve the goals that have been set for them 7.09 1.35 5.96 1.37
Teachers’ self-efficacy* 86.50 8.82 78.98 11.33 .11
How much can you do to control disruptive behaviour in the classroom? 7.66 1.09 6.61 1.41
How much can you do to motivate students who show low interest in school work? 6.30 1.36 6.34 1.24
How much can you do to get students to believe they can do well in school work? 6.96 1.24 6.66 1.09
How much can you do to help students value learning? 6.73 1.33 6.52 1.17
How much can you do to craft good questions for students? 7.66 1.14 6.98 1.19
How much can you do to get children to follow classroom rules? 7.65 1.09 6.70 1.19
How much can you do to calm a student who is disruptive or noisy? 7.32 1.21 6.58 1.24
How much can you do to establish a classroom management system with each group 7.81 1.01 6.53 1.18
of students?
How much can you do to implement a variety of assessment strategies? 7.70 1.28 6.64 1.24
How much can you do to provide an alternative explanation when students are 7.85 1.07 7.13 1.09
confused?
How much can you do to assist families in helping their children do well in school? 5.80 1.67 5.73 1.40
How much can you do to implement alternative strategies in your classroom? 7.07 1.36 6.48 1.19
Teachers’ collective efficacy* 87.33 10.53 76.96 12.28 .16
How much can teachers in your school do to produce meaningful student learning? 7.41 1.16 6.61 1.14
How much can your school do to get students to believe they can do well in 7.17 1.10 6.49 1.17
schoolwork?
To what extent can teachers in your school make expectations clear about 7.83 1.23 6.57 1.20
appropriate student behavior?
To what extent can school personnel in your school establish rules and procedures 7.64 1.33 6.58 1.37
that facilitate learning?
How much can teachers in your school do to help students master complex content? 7.41 1.02 6.55 1.21
How much can teachers in your school do to promote deep understanding of 7.26 1.21 6.48 1.27
academic concepts?
How well can teachers in your school respond to defiant students? 6.87 1.50 6.13 1.31
How much can school personnel in your school do to control disruptive behavior? 6.97 1.51 6.26 1.50
How much can teachers in your school do to help students think critically? 7.16 1.30 6.21 1.20
How well can adults in your school get students to follow school rules? 6.96 1.40 5.96 1.31
How much can your school do to foster student creativity? 7.10 1.32 6.23 1.18
How much can your school do to help students feel safe while they are at school? 7.60 1.31 6.88 1.29

SES* 3.26 .93 2.74 .70 .11

*po.001.

and student SES levels significantly higher than
teachers in Singapore. There was no difference
between the two groups on the measure of academic
climate.
Correlation coefficients for academic climate,
teachers’ self- and collective efficacy, and student
SES are presented for both countries in Table 3. For
Canadian teachers, academic climate was most
strongly associated with SES, followed by TCE
and TSE. For Singaporean teachers, academic
climate was most strongly associated with TCE,
followed by TSE and SES.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1926 R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934

Table 4 presents results from the standard multi- of the variance in academic climate, R2 ¼ .50,
ple regression conducted to explore the relative F(3, 246) ¼ 97.61, po.001. TCE was the strongest
strength of the predictors of academic climate in the predictor of academic climate (b ¼ .61, p o.001),
two countries. Using the AMOS structural equation followed by SES (b ¼ .15, p ¼ .001), and TSE
modeling software program to conduct multiple (b ¼ .13, p ¼ .05).
regression allows for simultaneous testing of the The goodness-of-fit statistics for model testing are
contribution of the three independent variables presented in Table 5. Results showed that con-
(TSE, TCE, and SES) to academic climate within straining all path coefficients to be equal across all
each group and the differences between path groups suggested a problem in fitting the model to
coefficients across groups. In Canada, TSE, TCE, the data, w2(3) ¼ 21.94, po.01. Releasing the TCE
and SES reliably predicted 33% of the vari- constraint across groups resulted in a significant
ance in ratings of academic climate, R2 ¼ .33, improvement to the model, Dw2(1) ¼ 8.49, po.01,
F(3, 254) ¼ 41.72, po.001. SES was the strongest suggesting that TCE is a significantly stronger
predictor of academic climate (b ¼ .45, po.001), predictor of academic climate for Singapore tea-
followed by TCE (b ¼ .25, po.001). TSE was chers. Releasing the SES constraint across groups
not a significant predictor of academic climate. led to a further improvement in the model,
In Singapore, the predictors accounted for 50% Dw2(1) ¼ 13.25, po.001, suggesting that SES
was a significantly stronger predictor of perceived
academic climate in Canada.
Table 3 We were also interested in exploring how
Correlations for academic climate, TSE, TCE, and SES
teachers’ self- and collective efficacy mediated the
(N ¼ 502)
relationship between student SES and perceptions
Variable 1 2 3 4 of academic climate in Canada and Singapore. We
conducted separate mediation analyses for teachers
1. Academic climate .50** .72** .32**
2. TSE .28** .58** .13*
from Canada and Singapore. For Canadian tea-
3. TCE .35** .60** .23** chers, neither TSE nor TCE mediated the influence
4. SES .48** .04 .09 of SES on perceptions of academic climate (Sobel’s
z ¼ .70 and 1.34, p ¼ ns, for TSE and TCE,
Note: TSE, teachers’ self-efficacy; TCE, teachers’ collective
efficacy. Correlations for Canada are below the diagonal and
respectively). For Singapore teachers, TSE partially
for Singapore, above the diagonal. mediated the effect of SES on academic climate
*po.05; **po.01. (Sobel’s z ¼ 1.94, p ¼ .05) and TCE displayed a

Table 4
Path coefficients of variables predicting academic climate for Canadian and Singaporean teachers

TSE TCE SES R2

B SE B b B SE B b B SE B b

Canadian teachers .12 .07 .11 .22 .06 .25** 4.60 .53 .45** .33
Singaporean teachers .10 .04 .13* .42 .04 .61** 1.84 .54 .15** .50

*po.05; **po.001.

Table 5
Testing the equivalence of path coefficients across Canadian and Singaporean teachers

Model tested CFI RMSEA w2 (df) p Dw2 (df)

1. All path coefficients equal .96 .11 21.94 (3) .00

2. All paths except TCE equal .98 .10 13.3 (2) .01 8.49 (1)*
3. All paths except TCE and SES equal 1.00 .00 .05 (1) .83 13.25 (1)**

Note: TCE, teachers’ collective efficacy; CFI, comparative fit index; RMSEA, root-mean-square error of approximation.
*po.01; **po.001.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934
stronger mediation effect on SES, (Sobel’s z ¼ 3.45,
po.001).
3.1. Brief discussion
Results from the quantitative study reveal that
teachers’ self- and collective efficacy are significantly
correlated with perceptions of academic climate
in both countries, but that student SES plays a
stronger role in influencing beliefs about academic
climate in a Canadian setting, whereas in Singapore,
a teacher’s beliefs about collective efficacy is a very
strong predictor of school climate. Moreover, in
Singapore, student SES is largely mediated by
teachers’ beliefs in their collective efficacy, whereas
in the Canadian context, SES was a powerful
influence on school climate, and this influence was
not mediated by teachers’ collective efficacy. The
results from the multiple regression show that
teachers’ self-efficacy makes little impact on percep-
tions of school climate over and above the
contributions of SES and TCE, and this relationship
held true in both countries. Teachers’ perceptions of
their school climate, then, appear to be most
strongly influenced by socio-demographic student
characteristics in the Canadian secondary schools,
and by teachers’ beliefs in their abilities to work as a
group to reach all students in Singaporean second-
ary schools. We were not surprised that Canadian
teachers rated their efficacy beliefs higher than
did the Singaporean teachers, and we believe this
likely reflects a response bias wherein East Asian
participants who complete attitude questionnaires
typically rate themselves lower than western parti-
cipants on measures that originate in western
settings (see Heine, 2003, 2004; Zusho & Pintrich,
2003). Also, for comparison, Lin et al. (2002) found
preservice teachers’ self-efficacy levels to be sig-
nificantly higher in the US than in Taiwan. In Study
2, we used qualitative interviews to delve deeper into
the relationship of teachers’ motivation, student
characteristics, and school climate.
4. Study 2
Study 1 quantitative results provided us with
broad findings about motivation patterns of tea-
chers in Canada and Singapore. The goal for the
second phase of our study was to extend and add
depth to our quantitative findings, and to provide
examples of the lived experience of teachers in
the two settings. To accomplish this, we designed
1927
a semi-structured interview protocol that was
grounded in the questions from the quantitative
phase of the study, and that also allowed partici-
pants to offer observations and insights that might
move outside of our initial research questions.
We were particularly interested in understanding
teachers’ perspectives on how their motivation
beliefs might interact with school climate, and how
working in challenging situations influences their
motivation beliefs.
4.1. Method
We conducted in-depth semi-structured indivi-
dual interviews with 10 teachers in Canada and
individual and focus-group interviews with 14
teachers in Singapore (six individual interviews
and two focus-group interviews). In Canada, inter-
views were completed in person (6) and over the
phone (4), and interviewees were six female and
four male secondary teachers working in the
same province in which the quantitative data were
collected. Canadian teachers were volunteers who
provided contact information on surveys completed
at the teacher convention. In Singapore, interviews
were completed in person, and participants were
purposefully sampled to represent the full range of
Singaporean secondary schools (i.e., from Special to
Technical Normal schools). The interviewer opened
the interview with a brief description of the research
project, and then posed general questions asking
about teaching in order to establish rapport (e.g.,
‘‘What do you like best about teaching?’’).
The interview then moved on to questions about
teachers’ self- and collective efficacy, phrased as
confidence (e.g., ‘‘How do your colleagues influence
your confidence to be a good teacher?’’ and ‘‘How is
your confidence influenced by the type of students
you are working with?’’). Initial interviews were
conducted in Singapore by the first two authors as a
team, and then by the second and third authors as a
team. Interviews were conducted in Canada by the
first and fourth authors. The interviews were
digitally recorded and field notes were taken as a
backup and to highlight important points.
4.1.1. Coding and analysis
The interviews were transcribed verbatim. We
used the HyperRESEARCH qualitative data ana-
lysis program for coding, mapping, and theming. To
promote integration of our qualitative and quanti-
tative data phases, we developed several a priori
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1928 R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934
(or theoretical) codes based on the central research
questions. Additional codes were created through
repeated readings and content analysis, and the 30
codes that emerged formed the basis of the
subsequent analysis procedures. Three researchers
independently coded a portion of the transcripts,
and resolved coding disagreements through discus-
sion. After reaching an acceptable level of inter-
rater agreement (i.e., above 90%) on multiple
interview segments, one researcher independently
coded the remainder of the data. The codes were
further distilled into a priori themes using proce-
dures described by Miles and Huberman (1994) in
which the coded data are manipulated and then
graphically displayed in order to identify relation-
ships, patterns and themes. Our themes reflected the
study’s major variables: (a) teachers’ individual and
group motivation beliefs, (b) the role of student
factors, and (c) influences on school climate.
Because this is a cross-cultural study, our coding
was influenced by our desire to draw comparisons
between Canadian and Singaporean teachers, and
to illuminate similarities and differences between the
two groups in relation to motivation and school
climate. We structured each theme by focusing on
similarities experienced by teachers in both contexts,
and then on situations that appeared to be unique to
a particular context. Quotes are used to provide
voice to the participants and concrete evidence to
support the themes (Creswell, 1998), and we have
indicated country of origin by country first initial
after the pseudonym, e.g., Anny, C refers to a
female Canadian teacher.
4.2. Results
4.2.1. Teachers’ individual and group motivation
We directly asked teachers about how their
individual and group motivation beliefs developed
in a school context. The most commonly noted
sources of individual motivation were encourage-
ment from administrators and colleagues (16
references in Canada and 19 references in Singa-
pore), past experience (11 and 14 references in
Canada and Singapore, respectively), and feedback
from students (13 references in Canada, 11 in
Singapore). Group motivation was built by admin-
istrative support (14 and 17 references in Canada
and Singapore, and student performance on exams
(4 references in Canada, 12 references in Singapore).
In the next section, we discuss the role of admin-
istrators, how feedback from students enhances
motivation, and other factors that enhanced group
motivation.
Encouragement from administrators was a strong
influence on teachers’ individual and group motiva-
tion in both settings. In Canada, teachers noted how
collective beliefs were fostered by the principal’s
influence: ‘‘Everything revolves around the princi-
paly she’s in everybody’s classroom, maybe just
for 30 s, but just popping her head in—not for
evaluation but to get her finger on the pulse of
what’s going on. She’s responsible for guiding the
vision and she steers us so that we are all on the
same page’’ (Sherry, C). In Singapore, teachers were
equally clear about the principal’s role in supporting
motivation: ‘‘Our principal is very dynamic and
visionary, and she’s a very confident leader, so
knowing that builds a certain form of confidence in
us’’ (Focus group 1, S) and ‘‘The principal in my
school thinks that we should touch and change the
lives of students, and he goes right down in building
these values in teachers, and it’s drummed into us in
meetings. So there’s a sense of collective belief to
change and touch students’ livesy The support you
get from higher up is really important for teachersy
it gives them confidence’’ (Focus group 1, S). The
principal can also bring together the staff in a more
negative manner. Grace from Singapore discussed
how a former principal brought the staff together:
‘‘Well, he was very hard working, and he expected
everyone to be hard working like him. He was a
good principaly but he became like number one
enemy and it caused the whole staff to kind of gel in
a way’’ (Grace, S).
For many teachers, feedback from students
resulted in increased motivation. Roger from
Singapore noted that his motivation for teaching
was bolstered by positive feedback from students
and from working as a team: ‘‘So basically, it’s the
students, when they come back to you and say,
‘Thanks for believing in me’ and what they tell me
about the success and failures of what I’m trying to
do.’’ Canadian teachers, too, noted the boost in
motivated behavior after feedback from students:
‘‘When you have your biggest headache (most
difficult student) make improvements, and all of a
sudden he’s getting a lot better, you’re a lot more
excited about going to the next one’’ (Barry, C), and
‘‘There’s so much to be learned from each child, and
there’s that great feeling—that feeling that keeps me
going in this job—when you have moment when the
child just gets it, or they feel success and surprise
themselves’’ (Wanda, C).
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934
For Singaporean teachers, working together to
solve common problems built group motivation:
‘‘We talk about how effective we are with the same
classy when we talk about it we seem to get
different perspectives on the same problems’’
(Roger, S) and ‘‘Our group confidence is built by
a sense of working together, of being in the thick of
it together. I think it’s a supportive climate that
builds our confidence’’ (Helena, S). Several of the
Singaporean teachers mentioned the importance of
establishing relationships with students in order to
foster student achievement: ‘‘It’s about bonding—
that’s very important’’ (Focus group 1, S) and ‘‘It’s
difficult to convince some of the teachers that
teaching is about relationships. You build the
relationships first, and then you teach, but for some
teachers, the relationship is not important, and it
(teaching) is just about finishing the syllabus, and as
a result, you get a whole lot of problems in your
class’’ (Focus group 2, S). Canadian teachers also
noted how group motivation made a difference to a
school’s effectiveness and climate: ‘‘Our students’
achievement is really rewarding and builds our
school’s confidence’’ (Sherry, C). Anny from Cana-
da, noted how working together builds school
success: ‘‘I am never doing anything aloney when
we work cooperatively, we can share and each has a
strength, and I think that’s the way we can work
together to achieve our goals of success for every
student.’’
4.2.2. Student factors
The teachers we interviewed in Canada discussed
student social problems that were more severe than
those discussed by Singapore teachers, and Canadian
teachers were also more likely to discuss students in
terms of their funding labels or categories. Teachers
from Canada discussed the impact of social
problems on school climate: ‘‘There is a bit of a
social context where students come and go (from
our school). Plus, we have a lot of problems with
drugs, too, and parents are working long shifts,
and not at home supervising kidsy we’re fighting
a lot of the social factors’’ (Jane, C), and ‘‘There’s
nothing we can do about the community. There
is some issue of prevalence of drugs with students
that I teach in particular—not hard drugs yet—
it’s still marijuanay but we do the best we can
do with what we’ve got, and I think that the
teachers are making a conscious effort to just
kind of carry on’’ (Sherry, C). Canadian teachers
made more references (17) to the difficulties that
1929
arose from working with disaffected or disengaged
students than did teachers in Singapore (8), and also
more references to social factors: ‘‘Our students
achieve very well, but we are in a relatively
low socio-economic area, and it’s always assumed
that if you’re in a low socio-economic area that
your students are not going to achieve as well’’
(Wanda, C).
The mixed intake of Canadian secondary schools
was also reflected in teachers’ comments about
working with a wider variety of students than was
discussed in Singapore. Canadian teachers were
more apt to discuss students with special learning
needs as qualitatively different from students with-
out special needs, whereas no mention of students
with disabilities or special learning needs was
made in Singapore. Canadian teacher Barry noted,
‘‘We’re also really cognizant of the fact that there
are certain groups of kidsy you know, you have
forty kids and nine of them are severe special needs,
you know, and you’re not going to have as good
results as last year when there was only one.’’ When
asked about teacher confidence, Wanda noted
‘‘There are so many special needs kids in our
school, and some children especially who are quite
(needy), and it takes, what’s that cliché? ‘It takes a
village,’ I think teachers are confident in their
abilities for the most part, but it’s all those outlying
circumstances and things beyond their control that
make it hard to say for sure that the students are
going to be successful.’’ Sherry added, ‘‘We’re pretty
confident as a group, but there are, I think, 120 kids
on IPPs (Individualized Program Plans for learning
or behavior needs) in our school, and every LD
(learning disabled) kid has the right to an IPP, so
it’s a lot of work.’’ Canadian teachers discussed the
cost of working with students who were experien-
cing serious academic problems: ‘‘We’re just trying
to get kids to graduate, and there’s an emphasis on
at-risk kids to the detriment of the average kid, and
so we push them through, bend, make agreements,
just to see those at-risk kids get their diploma.
Which in a way creates an atmosphere of medioc-
rity’’ (Jane, C). Barry recounted the story of one
student who ‘‘last year was hardly in the classroom
because of behavior problems. He was identified
and coded (as a student with special needs), but the
kid has strengths. His misbehavior was almost
always linked to the stress he feels academically,
and we really worked together to build this kid up.’’
Teachers acknowledged student social and beha-
vior problems in a Singapore context, but the nature
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1930 R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934
of the difficulties was different than in Canada:
‘‘Discipline problems? Yes, we do have those. Not
like seeing a policeman coming into the school, but
we do have mild discipline problems like, you know
the whole image of our students is that they should
not be sloppy, so that is one discipline problem, like
OK, their t-shirts are not well tucked-in, or
academic discipline, like not handing in work, and
being defiant’’ (Clarissa, S). Student defiance was
noted by several other teachers: ‘‘Nowadays in
general, not only in school, but everywhere,
students question, they are sometimes defiant—
they’re unlike in our time when we were very
obedient and did not question. Students don’t really
like to write down notes—they like to discuss—
that’s what they likey they want to mingle with
their peers. And you want to change them, but you
can’t change them—they are like that. So we, we
need to get to know and understand them more, and
try to tailor our teaching strategies to suit them’’
(William, S). Teachers in Singapore felt a personal
responsibility for at-risk students: ‘‘Teachers here
really want to make a difference in students’ lives.
(We) provide structure for teenagers who need this
boundary drawn for them, and then if they cross the
boundary, you have to tell them, very firmly, they’re
in a danger zone’’ (Roger, S). Getting to know
students at a personal level was seen as an
important step: ‘‘We get students to do journal
writing so actually every form teacher reads their
journal and writes personal responses on the journal
to respond to their needs’’ (Stephen S) and ‘‘It’s
really important to build relationships with your
students, and to try to engage them in all aspects,
not only classroom teachingy it includes field trips
and even engaging them in projects that really get
them to learn some life skill’’ (William, S).
The teachers from Singapore also noted the
additional effort needed to work with students with
learning problems, but were less likely to see the
students as qualitatively different than higher-
achieving students: ‘‘It doesn’t matter if they’re
weak students. If we can successfully help them have
some basic self-discipline, I think that’s something
all the teachers would see as a success’’ (Roger, S),
and ‘‘Teachers must also identify weaker students
who need remedial and send them to remedial
lessons every week. High-risk students will be
identified and sent for more intensive review of
their lessons. So we see this as a key factor in pulling
up some of the grades of those we consider high-risk
students in the academic results’’ (William, S).
Other teachers noted that some students lacked
discipline and motivation, and could be achieving at
higher levels: ‘‘Discipline is a problem, motivating
them is a problemy they don’t have the motivation
to improve themselves, and to get better gradesy
without discipline, and without a proper environ-
ment, it’s more difficult to get people to be
interested in learning as well’’ (Focus group 1).
4.2.3. School climate
Teachers in both countries spoke of how
the school atmosphere (sometimes referred to as
mood, sometimes as school feeling or climate) had a
reciprocal relationship on student and teacher
motivation. Both samples included teachers from a
range of academic contexts, from lower-achieving
secondary schools to some very high performing
schools. Canadian and Singaporean teachers both
described school climate as a striving for academic
excellence: ‘‘I think the mood of our school is that
every single person in the building, from the
principal to the custodian has high expectations of
our kids, and the students want to do welly there’s
an enormous pride here’’ (Anny, C), and ‘‘You can
just tell (about the positive atmosphere) by the way
the teachers smile, by the way that the kids walk, by
the staff when you walk through the front door, by
the welcoming atmosphere, by the light, that it’s a
school you want to be at’’ (Sherry, C). School
atmosphere was seen in Canadian settings as some-
thing that influenced motivation: ‘‘It’s almost a
direct correlation, I would think, I mean the happier
more positive you are, the more confident you are,
the more positive feedback you’re giving the kids,
the more confident they get. So they tend to achieve
at a higher level, rather than hearing all the things
they can’t do’’ (Barry, C).
Teachers in Singapore expressed the belief that
the prevailing mood or atmosphere of the school
influenced both teachers’ motivation and student
achievement. A school-wide emphasis on academic
performance was noted by most teachers: ‘‘I think
that basically what we call ‘school spirit’ is
influenced by our past history of academic excel-
lence. The present spirit in the school that the
teachers project does affect student performance’’
(Roger, S). Within the framework of striving for
academic excellence, many teachers noted that an
ethos of caring was necessary to support students as
they pressed for high academic achievement: ‘‘It’s
the culture of the school—it’s very caring—and
when you first walk into the school, it actually gives
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934
you that kind of warmth you’re looking for’’
(Helena, S). Teachers in Singapore frequently noted
the importance of a sense of shared purpose: ‘‘We
all have a collective problem—the school tone,
the discipline, and helping these kids who need help
so you will see us in the staff room and we are very
much talking to each other, we are always talking
about the kids, so there is that sense of together-
ness’’ (Sally, S).
4.3. Brief discussion
The qualitative results provided support for our
quantitative findings, and also provided explanation
for the quantitative finding that SES was mediated
by collective efficacy in Singapore, but not in
Canada. Teachers in both contexts noted the crucial
role played by individual and group motivation
beliefs in determining school climate. The princi-
pal’s role in supporting teachers and in establishing
the school’s academic atmosphere was deemed to be
essential in Canada and Singapore, and teachers in
both settings agreed that a sense of collective
direction was critical in building a school’s academic
climate and ensuring students’ academic success.
Teachers in Canada discussed student behavior that
was more severe than teachers in Singapore,
although both groups of teachers noted that student
behavior was a challenge that influenced teaching
and learning. Canadian teachers were more apt to
discuss special needs classifications, and to empha-
size involvement with a wider range of student
learning and behavior difficulties. Schools’ aca-
demic climate was viewed as something noticed
‘‘when you first walk into a school,’’ with climate
defined as academic expectations, student engage-
ment, and students’ and teachers’ pride in belonging
to a particular school.
5. General discussion
Canada and Singapore are culturally and geo-
graphically diverse, but they share a high standard
of living, similar life expectancies, and a commit-
ment to universal education. In this study we
investigated how teachers’ beliefs about their
individual and collective efficacy influence school
climate. Teachers in the two countries believe that
they can influence student outcomes, even in
challenging situations, but the social and cultural
differences across countries appear to shape tea-
chers’ beliefs in how much they can influence
1931
student outcomes in certain situations. Teachers’
self-efficacy beliefs were not strong determinants of
perceived school climate in either country, but
teachers’ motivation beliefs predicted school climate
in both settings. In Canada, however, SES was the
single strongest predictor of perceptions of school
academic climate, and it was not mediated by
teachers’ collective efficacy beliefs. In Singapore,
SES had a direct effect on academic climate, but it
was mediated by teachers’ beliefs in their efficacy
beliefs. Our qualitative results provide some ex-
planation for this finding. Canadian teachers in this
study report facing more serious social challenges,
and expressed less control over the learning of
students experiencing social problems.
For Singapore teachers, collective efficacy beliefs
played a stronger role in influencing academic
climate than for Canadian teachers. It may be that
collective motivation plays a stronger role in East
Asian cultural settings, where people may rely more
heavily on group-oriented motivation beliefs, like
collective efficacy. Individualist cultures, of which
Canada is an example, tend to emphasize indepen-
dence, ‘‘I’’ consciousness, and individual function-
ing (Kim, Triandis, Kagitcibasi, Choi, & Yoon,
1994). In contrast, collectivist cultures have a
tendency to stress ‘‘we’’ consciousness, collective
identity, and group solidarity (Kim et al., 1994). The
results from recent research have suggested that
efficacy beliefs may operate differently in different
cultures (e.g., Earley, Gibson, & Chen, 1999;
Klassen, 2004; Schaubroeck, Lam, & Xie, 2000).
Although Bandura (1997, 2002) rejects the notion
that self-efficacy plays a lesser role in collectivist
cultures—‘‘People live their lives neither entirely
autonomously nor entirely interdependently in any
societyy. Interdependence does not obliterate a
personal self’’ (1997, p. 32)—it is also true that
collectivist cultural settings have higher expectations
for communal endeavors. The results from our
study might be interpreted as reinforcing the notion
that the more collectivist Singapore teachers’
possess an increased reliance on collective motiva-
tion beliefs, consistent with their cultural beliefs and
practices. However, our qualitative results also
point to another possible interpretation.
The qualitative findings provide insight into the
differing socio-educational contexts in the two
countries. Teachers in both settings reported diffi-
culties with students, but the Canadian teachers
acknowledged more severe student social problems,
like illegal drug use, that were consistent with
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1932 R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934
findings from other Western settings (e.g., Suther-
land & Shepherd, 2002). Canadian teachers recog-
nized the social challenges—‘‘We’re fighting a lot of
the social factors’’—and were resigned to working
with students from challenging social backgrounds
because ‘‘there’s nothing we can do about the
community.’’ Singapore teachers spoke of student
social problems—rude behaviors, disrespect, and
sloppy dress—that may be more amenable to
educational interventions and collective effort.
Other studies have commented on the increased
challenges relating to teaching in North American
settings in comparison to many East Asian settings.
Ho and Hau (2004) suggested engaging students in
learning was more challenging in Australia than in
China, and that student behavior causes more
teacher stress in Western settings. In addition,
the focus on special education classification in the
Canadian schools resulted in teachers who may
have felt less control over student academic out-
comes. In Singapore, there is less focus on special
needs legislation and classification (Chen & Soon,
2006), and teachers and schools may be less prone
to accepting the notion that students’ learning
problems are resistant to instruction. Teachers in
Singapore tended to speak about students with low
ability as needing additional support and direction;
teachers in Canada tended to speak of students
with low ability in terms of special needs classifica-
tion, and with the implicit understanding that the
student’s special needs represented an immutable
aspect of the child’s learning profile.
We were not surprised to find differences in levels
of individual and collective motivation beliefs across
the two countries, but because of the likelihood of
cultural response biases (e.g., Heine, 2003, 2004) we
pay little heed to the importance of these differ-
ences. Are teachers in Canada really more confident
in their beliefs that they can individually and
collectively make a difference in students’ lives? It
is clear that they rate themselves significantly more
highly on measures of self- and collective efficacy,
but it is equally clear that teachers in Singapore
believe that they can influence student outcomes,
even in the face of low student SES. The studies of
teacher efficacy conducted by Lin et al. (2002) and
Ho and Hau (2004) showed similar differences in
levels of beliefs across Western and East Asian
groups, and Heine has written previously about
culturally derived response biases, such as self-
effacing bias (e.g., Heine, 2003, 2004), that may not
reflect meaningful cross-cultural differences. More
important, in our opinion, is the stronger relation-
ship between collective efficacy beliefs and academic
climate for Singapore teachers, and the finding that
the influence of student SES on perceived academic
climate is mediated by these collective efficacy
beliefs in Singapore, but not in Canada. Levels of
teachers’ self- and collective efficacy are less
important than the relationships among self- and
collective efficacy, SES, and academic climate.
Our findings have implications for teachers,
administrators, and teacher educators in all settings.
For Canadian and other culturally western educa-
tors, the Singaporean example that collective
motivation beliefs strongly mediate the effects of
SES should be noted. In individualist settings,
educators may tend to strive to improve their
teaching effectiveness primarily through individu-
ally focused professional development, while ne-
glecting to strengthen the interactive and collective
influence of the teaching staff as a group. Individual
teachers make a difference in student achievement,
but the collective efforts of teachers also have a
positive influence on students (Tschannen-Moran &
Barr, 2004). Building the collective motivation of a
school staff through attention to the sources of
collective efficacy—postulated as successful past
experience, observation of successful others, verbal
persuasion, and group affect (Bandura, 1997)—may
have a positive influence on student performance,
even in challenging teaching circumstances. Pre-
vious lines of research have found that deliberately
building a collaborative school culture benefits
teachers and students alike (e.g., Little, 1982;
Sergiovanni, 2004). Teachers’ beliefs about the
importance of collaboration reflect a school’s
organizational and social environment, which in
turn determines how teaching is to be accomplished
(Kleinsasser, 1993). Depending on the organiza-
tional and social environment, teachers might work
collaboratively with colleagues to improve student
outcomes, or decide that teaching is an individual
occupation, whose success is dependent largely on
the quality of instruction. Bolstering teachers’
collective efficacy beliefs may serve to improve
student performance while also changing a school’s
organizational and social environment.
Future studies investigating teachers’ collective
efficacy across cultures should focus on teasing apart
the strands of findings produced in this study, some
of which may be the result of the sampling and
methodologies employed. For example, Canadian
teachers’ were more likely to discuss the special needs
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934
status and behavior problems of their students than
were Singaporean teachers, but the generalizability
of these findings to other settings is not known.
Future research might investigate how policies
of academic streaming (Singapore) and inclusion
(Canada) influence teachers’ motivation beliefs. The
societal expectations of appropriate behavior differed
considerably between the two settings. In spite of
Canadian teachers acknowledging apparently more
serious student problem behavior, levels of teachers’
self- and collective efficacy were rated more highly in
the Canadian schools, but this may be the result of
response bias or the reference-group effect, in which
people’s responses are influenced by their surround-
ing comparison groups (e.g., Heine, 2004). Additional
cross-cultural studies investigating teachers’ motiva-
tion beliefs would help to clarify some of the
questions raised in this study.
The study is limited by its reliance on samples
taken from one geographical region in Canada,
although the sample includes representatives from a
wide variety of secondary schools in that geographical
region. Similarly, the sample in Singapore was not
randomly chosen, although because of the stratified
sample chosen, it may be considered to reasonably
reflect the range of teachers and schools in Singapore.
Another limitation concerns the measurement of
group variables, like collective efficacy and academic
climate, at the individual level. We acknowledge that
these variables have often been measured at the
school level, but we suggest that they can also be
reliably and validly measured at the individual level,
since perceptions of collective efficacy and academic
climate are fostered in individuals as well as groups.
This is among the first explorations of teachers’
collective efficacy beliefs across cultural groups; in the
future, it would be sensible to further explore
similarities and differences in these group variables
across cultures using individual and group-level
measurement.
Acknowledgment
The authors are grateful for the support provided
through a grant to the first author from the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
References
Arbuckle, J. L. (2006). AMOS 7.0 user’s guide. Chicago, IL: SPSS
Inc.
1933
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New
York: Freeman.
Bandura, A. (2002). Social cognitive theory in cultural context.
Journal of Applied Psychology: An International Review, 51,
269–290.
Byrne, B. M. (2004). Testing for multigroup invariance using
AMOS graphics: A road less traveled. Structural Equation
Modeling, 11, 272–300.
Caprara, G. V., Barbaranelli, C., Borgogni, L., & Steca, P.
(2003). Efficacy beliefs as determinants of teachers’ job
satisfaction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 821–832.
Caprara, G. B., Barbaranelli, C., Steca, P., & Malone, P. S.
(2006). Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs as determinants of job
satisfaction and students’ academic achievement: A study at
the school level. Journal of School Psychology, 44, 473–490.
Chen, K., & Soon, T. C. (2006). Education and services for
children and youths with emotional and behavioral disorders
in Singapore. Preventing School Failure, 50, 37–42.
Creswell, J. W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design:
Choosing among five traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2007). Designing and
conducting mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Earley, P. C., Gibson, C. B., & Chen, C. C. (1999). ‘‘How did I
do?’’ versus ‘‘How did we do?’’ Cultural contrasts of
performance feedback use and self-efficacy. Journal of
Cross-Cultural Psychology, 30, 594–619.
Gibson, S., & Dembo, M. (1984). Teacher efficacy: A construct
validation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76, 569–582.
Goddard, R. D. (2001). Collective efficacy: A neglected construct
in the study of schools and student achievement. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 93, 467–476.
Gorrell, J., & Hwang, Y. S. (1995). A study of efficacy beliefs
among preservice teachers in Korea. Journal of Research and
Development in Education, 28, 101–105.
Heine, S. J. (2003). An exploration of cultural variation in self-
enhancing and self-improving motivations. In V. Murphy-
Berman, & J. J. Berman (Eds.), Cross-cultural differences in
perspectives on the self (pp. 101–128). Lincoln, NE: University
of Nebraska Press.
Heine, S. J. (2004). Positive self-views: Understanding universals
and variability across cultures. Journal of Cultural and
Evolutionary Psychology, 2, 109–122.
Henson, R. K. (2002). From adolescent angst to adulthood:
Substantive implications and measurement dilemmas in the
development of teacher efficacy research. Educational Psy-
chologist, 37, 137–150.
Ho, I. T., & Hau, K. T. (2004). Australian and Chinese teacher
efficacy: Similarities and differences in personal instruction,
discipline, guidance efficacy and beliefs in external determi-
nants. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 313–323.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differ-
ences in work-related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Hoy, W. K., Smith, P. A., & Sweetland, S. R. (2002). The
development of the Organizational Climate Index for high
schools: Its measure and relationship to faculty trust. The
High School Journal, 86, 38–49.
Hoy, W. K., Tarter, C. J., & Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2006). Academic
optimism of schools: A force for student achievement.
American Educational Research Journal, 43, 425–446.
Johnson, R. B., & Onwuegbuzie, A. J. (2004). Mixed methods
research: A research paradigm whose time has come.
Educational Researcher, 33, 14–26.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
1934 R.M. Klassen et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 24 (2008) 1919–1934
Kim, U., Triandis, H. C., Kagitcibasi, C., Choi, S. C., & Yoon,
G. (1994). Introduction. In U. Kim, H. C. Triandis, C.
Kagitcibasi, S. C. Choi, & G. Yoon (Eds.), Individualism and
collectivism: Theory, methods and applications (pp. 1–16).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Klassen, R. M. (2004). Optimism and realism: A review of self-
efficacy from a cross-cultural perspective. International
Journal of Psychology, 39, 205–230.
Kleinsasser, R. C. (1993). A tale of two technical cultures:
Foreign language teaching. Teaching & Teacher Education, 9,
373–383.
Knobloch, N. A., & Whittington, M. S. (2002). Novice
teachers’ perceptions of support, teacher preparation
quality, and student teaching experience related to teacher
efficacy. Journal of Vocational Education Research, 27,
331–341.
Labone, E. (2004). Teacher efficacy: Maturing the construct
through research in alternative paradigms. Teaching and
Teacher Education, 20, 341–359.
Lin, H.-L., Gorrell, J., & Taylor, J. (2002). Influence of
culture and education on US and Taiwan preservice teachers’
efficacy beliefs. The Journal of Educational Research, 96,
37–46.
Little, J. W. (1982). Norms of collegiality and experimentation:
Workplace conditions of school success. American Educa-
tional Research Journal, 19, 325–340.
Marsh, H. W., & Hau, K.-T. (2004). Explaining paradoxical
relations between academic self-concepts and achievements:
Cross-cultural generalizability of the internal/external frame
of reference predictions across 26 countries. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 96, 56–67.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data
analysis: An expanded sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Mulder, M., & Korenic, B. (2005). Portraits of immigrants and
ethnic minorities in Canada: Regional comparisons. Edmonton,
AB: Prairie Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration
and Integration.
Robitaille, D. F., & Taylor, A. R. (2001). Third International
Mathematics and Science Study: Canada report. Education
Quarterly Review, 7, 37–41.
Schaubroeck, J., Lam, S. S. K., & Xie, J. L. (2000). Collective
efficacy versus self-efficacy in coping responses to stressors
and control: A cross-cultural study. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 85, 512–525.
Sergiovanni, T. J. (2004). Collaborative cultures and communities
of practice. Principal Leadership, 5, 48–52.
Singapore Infomap. (2007). Retrieved May 17, 2007 from
/http://www.sg/explore/profile_people.htmS.
Sutherland, I., & Shepherd, J. P. (2002). Adolescents’ beliefs
about future substance use: A comparison of current users
and non-users of cigarettes, alcohol and illicit drugs. Journal
of Adolescence, 25, 169–181.
Sweetland, S. R., & Hoy, W. K. (2000). School characteristics
and educational outcomes: Toward an organizational model
of student achievement in middle schools. Educational
Administration Quarterly, 36, 703–729.
Tashakkori, A., & Teddlie, C. (1998). Mixed methodology:
Combining qualitative and quantitative approaches. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Tschannen-Moran, M., & Barr, M. (2004). Fostering student
learning: The relationship of collective teacher efficacy and
student achievement. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 3,
189–209.
Tschannen-Moran, M., & Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2001). Teacher
efficacy: Capturing an elusive construct. Teaching and Teacher
Education, 17, 783–805.
Tschannen-Moran, M., Woolfolk Hoy, A., & Hoy, W. K. (1998).
Teacher efficacy: Its meaning and measure. Review of
Educational Research, 68, 202–248.
Wolters, C. A., & Daugherty, S. G. (2007). Goal structures and
teachers’ sense of efficacy: Their relation and association to
teaching experience and academic level. Journal of Educa-
tional Psychology, 99, 181–193.
World Bank. (2007). The World Bank. Retrieved May 30, 2007
from /http://www.worldbank.org/S.
Yin, P., & Fan, X. (2003). Assessing the factor structure
invariance of self-concept measurement across ethnic and
gender groups: Findings from a national sample. Educational
and Psychological Measurement, 63, 296–318.
Zusho, A., & Pintrich, P. R. (2003). A process-oriented approach
to culture: Theoretical and methodological issues in the study
of culture and motivation. In F. Salili, & R. Hoosain (Eds.),
Teaching, learning, and motivation in a multicultural context
(pp. 33–66). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.