Teachers’ self-efficacy, personality, and teaching effectiveness: A meta-analysis

• We examine how teachers’ self-efficacy and personality are related to effectiveness.
• Self-efficacy was strongly associated with observed teaching performance.
• Personality was modestly related with observed teaching performance.

Considerable research has been conducted based on the assumption that teachers’ psychological characteristics are associated with teaching effectiveness. However, the evidence for this assumption is limited: most research on the topic has been limited to investigations of the links between teachers’ self-reported characteristics and other within-teacher, self-reported outcomes. The purpose of this study was to systematically analyze the research exploring two psychological characteristics (self-efficacy and personality) and measures of teaching effectiveness (evaluated teaching performance and student achievement). Analysis of 43 studies representing 9216 participants reveals a significant but small effect size of r¯=.10 between overall psychological characteristics and teaching effectiveness. The strongest effect found was for self-efficacy on evaluated teaching performance (r¯=.28). Implications for practice and future research are discussed.