Differential manifestation of teacher self-efficacy in Brazilian university professors in the health area

Abstract

Self-efficacy has occupied the research space due to the relevance it holds as an explanatory mechanism of human performance to understand the characteristics of the population, the study analyzed the differentiation of beliefs of self-efficacy of university professors who teach in the health area according to gender, marital status, age, seniority at work, religion and training graduate academic. A cross-sectional and quantitative study was attended by 189 university professors working in a private university in northeastern Brazil. The differentiation indicate that Women perceive themselves more self-effective in the elaboration of didactic strategies to favor interaction in class; older teachers consider themselves more effective in didactic strategies for the planning of classes and postdoctoral teachers stood out for the higher sense of self-efficacy regarding didactic strategies for class planning, didactic strategies to actively implicate students and didactic strategies to favor interaction in class. Self-efficacy as an explanatory mechanism of human performance is determinant and therefore it is important to be enhanced in university professors for the pursuit of a higher quality of teaching-learning of future health professionals.