“This is the way we teach” the exploration of ESP teachers’ self-efficacy belief in pedagogical tasks: a case in higher education

This qualitative case study aimed at exploring self-efficacy belief and source information of ESP teachers dealing with the challenges of ESP pedagogical tasks, e.g., course development and instruction at a language institution of an autonomous university located in Thailand. The study also highlighted individual the development of self-efficacy beliefs, along with the relevant contextual factors influencing perceived self-efficacy beliefs and self-efficacy sources. The case in this study focused on ESP teachers whose educational degrees were in the field of English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, and who taught a number of ESP courses at a highly regarded and well-known institution with a large number of undergraduate students from various disciplines. The teachers in this case appeared to have a great deal of teaching experience and expertise in pedagogical skills. This made the case worth exploring, especially in the aspect of their beliefs and practices to deal with pedagogical challenges. In total, twenty-two teachers from the institution participated in this case study. The data were collected through a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. For the questionnaire, there were twenty-two respondents. The data were presented in descriptive statistics. Relevant themes and categories were grounded from interview transcripts derived from the eight teachers who volunteered to join the second phase of the study, and two types of documents, i.e., course syllabi and English-minor curriculum. The findings revealed ESP teachers’ self-efficacy belief and source information influenced by the contextual factors found in the case. The questionnaire showed that the average ESP teachers in this case possessed high level of self-efficacy in almost all the ESP pedagogical aspects (x̄ = 3.97). The highest level was teaching method (x̄ = 4.26) whereas needs analysis received the lowest level, i.e., (x̄ = 3.71). This statistical information helped give the directions for the second phase of the study. For the qualitative phase, cognitive and enactive mastery experiences were proven to be the most influential sources accommodating ways to cope with ESP challenges. Vicarious experience and verbal persuasion were scant in this case since the characteristics of university teachers, academic freedom, work policies, limited collegiality, and heavy workload as contextual factors reduced the two sources. Emotional states were found to be less influential, but in association with class interaction. The study also focused on the particularity of the case in the aspect of development of self-efficacy and source information shaped by contextual factors. Pedagogical implication, directions for future research, and tentative plans to improve self-efficacy development for the current case and other similar contexts were also discussed.