Rural music teacher self-efficacy: source influence and commitment

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of self-efficacy sources in informing the self-beliefs, teaching practices, and commitment of rural music teachers. People’s efficacy beliefs affect what actions they take based on how they envision the expected outcomes. These actions include how much effort they will give, their resilience in the face of obstacles and adversity, how they respond to stressors, and what results they realize. Bandura’s (1997) self-efficacy sources (enactive mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal/social persuasion, and physiological and affective states) provide a framework to understand how rural music teachers experience with these self-efficacy sources may contribute to their teaching practice and their commitment to rural music teaching. The study methodology was a multiple case study with cross-case analysis. There were six study participants who taught multiple grade levels and music subject areas in a rural public school in Maine. Each participant completed the Music Teacher Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (adapted from Zelenak, 2011 and Lewis, 2018); a focus group interview; individual interviews; and two written journal prompts. Results from this study show the importance to support rural music teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching through the four self-efficacy sources. The strengths of the participants’ perceived self-efficacy enabled them to persevere through music teaching challenges, especially those with out-of-specialty music teaching, which contributed to their resilience and commitment to teaching in a rural area. Helping music teachers to understand self-efficacy development and the cognitive processing of the four self-efficacy sources may motivate them to persist and improve their teaching practice through perseverant action, improve student learning, and strengthen commitment levels for music teaching in rural areas. Furthermore, fostering relationships and building connections of community with students, staff, parents, and members of the community may be important for developing rural music teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and for supporting affirming rural lifestyle experiences. Rural music teachers may discover an enduring concept of teaching success when they co-create meaningful experiences with students and community members that celebrates the individual strengths and values of a rural area

Le Forum, Vol. 41 No. 3

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Recommendations for the use of common outcome measures in pediatric traumatic brain injury research

This article addresses the need for age-relevant outcome measures for traumatic brain injury (TBI) research and summarizes the recommendations by the inter-agency Pediatric TBI Outcomes Workgroup. The Pediatric Workgroup\u27s recommendations address primary clinical research objectives including characterizing course of recovery from TBI, prediction of later outcome, measurement of treatment effects, and comparison of outcomes across studies. Consistent with other Common Data Elements (CDE) Workgroups, the Pediatric TBI Outcomes Workgroup adopted the standard three-tier system in its selection of measures. In the first tier, core measures included valid, robust, and widely applicable outcome measures with proven utility in pediatric TBI from each identified domain including academics, adaptive and daily living skills, family and environment, global outcome, health-related quality of life, infant and toddler measures, language and communication, neuropsychological impairment, physical functioning, psychiatric and psychological functioning, recovery of consciousness, social role participation and social competence, social cognition, and TBI-related symptoms. In the second tier, supplemental measures were recommended for consideration in TBI research focusing on specific topics or populations. In the third tier, emerging measures included important instruments currently under development, in the process of validation, or nearing the point of published findings that have significant potential to be superior to measures in the core and supplemental lists and may eventually replace them as evidence for their utility emerges