The relationship between teacher self-efficacy and violence toward students as mediated by teacher's attitude

This study examines physical and verbal maltreatment of students by their teachers. This study, the first of its kind, examines teachers' use of violence based on their own reports and assesses the contribution of teachers' characteristics in explaining their reports of violence toward their students. The research is based on a large sample of homeroom teachers (382 homeroom teachers, 70.8 female) from 30 Arab schools across Israel. Self-administered questionnaires were completed, and the respondents were kept anonymous. The results of the study revealed that one-third of homeroom teachers reported using physical violence and one in five teachers reported using verbal violence toward a student in their classroom during the last month. Teachers' lower perception of their self-efficacy and higher support of the use of verbal or physical violence were significantly correlated with greater frequency of reports of their actual use of violence toward their students. The theoretical and research implications of these findings in Israel and other cultures are discussed. Practical recommendations capture the role of social workers as being concerned with designing interventions directed to the entire school community rather than simply to individual students or teachers.