Twana Young, Ph.D., is Vice President of Academic Design, Mathematics at McGraw Hill, leading development of engaging, high-quality K–12 math curriculum for students and teachers. She has served as a teacher, instructional coach, district leader, and product leader, with expertise in curriculum and assessment development, professional learning, instructional design, educational leadership, product development, and research. Dr. Young is dedicated to improving mathematics education and creating impactful instructional resources. A national thought leader, she frequently presents research and insights across the country. She holds degrees from Nicholls State University, Ashland University, and Liberty University, focused on education, curriculum and achievement.
District leaders across the country are searching for ways to improve mathematics achievement. In many places, students have not returned to the achievement levels that existed pre-pandemic. Schools have invested heavily in curriculum, intervention programs, assessments, and professional development, yet many students continue to struggle in mathematics. While standards, resources, and instructional initiatives are important, one critical factor is often overlooked in school improvement conversations: student self-efficacy and teacher self-efficacy.
Albert Bandura’s work on social cognitive theory identified self-efficacy as a major influence on motivation, perseverance, and behavior. Self-efficacy is a person’s belief that they can be successful with a given task. Self-efficacy is task-specific, not subject-specific. For example, a student may have high self-efficacy in whole-number addition but low self-efficacy in fraction addition. Self-efficacy is more than feeling confident. A student can feel nervous and still have high self-efficacy because they believe, “I can learn this if I persevere.” This belief is evident when we see students engage in playing video games. No matter how many times they fail, they persist because they believe they will succeed in the end. Every challenge students faced in gameplay, they saw as an opportunity to learn and grow in their understanding.
Self-efficacy is not so much about what students know as it is about whether they will engage long enough to learn. When students have high self-efficacy, they are more likely to attempt challenging tasks, persist when learning becomes difficult, engage in productive struggle, recover from mistakes, and demonstrate motivation and resilience. These are skills that students demonstrate when they believe that their effort and thinking can lead to success.
Teachers are another important factor in student success. They are instrumental in building student engagement and supporting students in constructing knowledge. It is also important to consider teacher self-efficacy in school improvement efforts. Teacher self-efficacy is an educator’s belief in their ability to successfully teach so that students will learn. Teacher self-efficacy is complex and futuristic. It is a product of what teachers think they are capable of teaching, based on their perceptions and interpretations of their past experiences of success and failure. A teacher’s self-efficacy is also influenced by beliefs about the content they have learned and the content they believe they can effectively teach to students.
The implications for student achievement and students’ own development of self-efficacy are substantial.
Teacher self-efficacy directly influences instructional decisions, classroom climate, and student opportunities to learn. Teachers with high self-efficacy tend to provide richer mathematical experiences, encourage productive struggle, and support deeper student engagement. Students in these classrooms are more likely to perceive their teachers as supportive and to develop confidence in their own mathematical abilities. In many ways, teacher self-efficacy becomes contagious. When teachers believe students can succeed, students begin to believe it too.
As a curriculum designer, I see this as a place where instructional resources can play a transformative role.
High-quality instructional materials (HQIM) should not only support student learning but also support teacher learning. When this happens, it allows for teacher self-efficacy support at scale. My team and I are committed to creating educative curriculum materials that intentionally include guidance to help teachers strengthen their content knowledge, pedagogy, and instructional decision-making during lessons. These supports may include things like teacher questioning strategies, sample student responses, guidance on differentiation, instructional videos, explanations of mathematical concepts, and information on common misconceptions.
When instructional materials function as embedded professional learning, teachers experience something powerful: mastery experiences.
Bandura identified mastery experiences as the strongest source of self-efficacy. Mastery experiences are experiences of success with overcoming challenges or completing tasks. Teacher self-efficacy increases when teachers successfully implement instructional strategies and see positive student outcomes. When teachers see students grasp concepts, improve their skills, show confidence in learning, and have “a-ha” moments it strengthens their own confidence and willingness to implement rigorous instructional practices. Confidence becomes sustainable when teachers experience authentic success supported by strong systems, meaningful collaboration, and practical instructional resources.
For district leaders, a focus on students’ self-efficacy and teacher self-efficacy provides an opportunity
The future of mathematics achievement depends not only on what students believe about themselves, but also on what teachers believe about their own ability to make a difference. Therefore, improving mathematics achievement cannot focus solely on student interventions and accountability measures. It must also include intentional efforts to strengthen student self-efficacy and teacher self-efficacy.
The good news is that self-efficacy is not static. It changes as students and teachers assess and reassess their capabilities. It changes as new skills are learned and can vary by topic. Teacher self-efficacy grows when teachers experience success, gain clarity, and have opportunities to reflect on their practice.
Before teachers can cultivate confidence in students, schools must first create conditions where teachers themselves experience success, growth, and efficacy. That may be the most overlooked and most powerful strategy for improving student outcomes.
Bandura found four sources that are important to improving self-efficacy. Mastery experiences are past experiences in similar situations. Vicarious experiences, which refer to teachers’ experiences observing and learning from others in similar situations. Verbal Persuasion, which refers to the feedback, encouragement, and messages teachers receive from leaders, colleagues, and systems around them. Physiological and Emotional States, which refer to how stress, anxiety, workload, and emotional conditions influence teachers’ beliefs in their capabilities. Addressing these areas improves self-efficacy.
Four Strategies for Educational Leaders to Improve Teacher Self-Efficacy:
- Operationalize Successful Mastery Experiences – Instead of large initiatives, create short-cycle initiatives that deliver quick wins, set small, measurable implementation targets, and establish quick feedback loops so successes can be celebrated and shared.
- Normalize Visible Practice – Create opportunities for teachers to observe effective instruction in authentic classroom settings through peer observations, co-teaching, demonstration classrooms, lesson study, or video-based learning. Highlight examples from educators with similar student populations, content areas, or experience levels so teachers can more easily envision success in their own classrooms.
- Amplify Evidence of Impact – Create “instructional impact snapshots” to highlight teacher moves that resulted in student thinking and engagement. Highlight short student testimonials about “a-ha” moments when learning clicked. Create opportunities for peer-to-peer feedback that lead to instructional wins. The goal is to create an environment where teachers regularly hear credible evidence that their work is making a difference and that growth is expected, supported, and achievable.
- Lower Cognitive Load – Reduce unnecessary cognitive and emotional strain by creating annotated lessons for concepts that are traditionally challenging for teachers to teach. Establish instructional routines. The repetitive nature brings feelings of familiarity, purpose, and connection.
Building teacher self-efficacy is not an isolated initiative. It is foundational to instructional improvement, effective curriculum implementation, and long-term student success. When teachers believe they can make a difference, they teach with greater clarity, persistence, creativity, and purpose, and students are positively impacted.