The Effects of Substitute Teacher Training on the Teaching Efficacy of Prospective Substitute Teachers in the State of West Virginia

Teacher absenteeism, retirement, and attrition have led to a widespread shortage of substitute teachers throughout the United States , resulting in the hiring of individuals who lack teacher certification and educational pedagogy. In the past decade, West Virginia joined many other states confronted with the decreased substitute teacher pool and the hiring of non-certified individuals in the classrooms.

With the highly qualified teacher requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), focus was situated on the adequate qualifications of substitute teachers. Many substitute teachers do not have the educational pedagogy or teacher certification necessary to be considered highly qualified by the NCLB. Mandatory training for non-certified substitute teachers lacking proper certification and educational pedagogy became the focus to qualify these individuals for the classroom. This study focuses on the self-efficacy of non-certified individuals attending the substitute teacher training in the Regional Education Service Agencies (RESAs) in the state of West Virginia to determine if their self-efficacy beliefs change after two days of mandatory substitute training or after classroom experience.

The Teacher's Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) developed by Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk-Hoy (2001) was the instrument used to measure the self-efficacy of non-certified substitute teachers. Findings indicate that the teaching self-efficacy of non-certified substitute teachers significantly increased from pre-training to post-training, but significantly decreased from post-training to post-teaching experiences. Additionally, findings revealed that age and gender did not have a significant influence on self-efficacy from pre-training, to post-training, to post-teaching. Finally, applications and ramifications of these results are then discussed.