Teacher Learning in a School-University Partnership: Exploring the Role of Social Trust and Teaching Efficacy Beliefs

Teacher learning has been studied in numerous contexts using a variety of theoretical frameworks. Our research examines variation in teacher learning in a school-university partnership. We explore the personal characteristics of social trust and teaching efficacy beliefs in relation to teachers’ levels of learning. We classify teachers in the partnership into three categories based on their demonstrated affective and pedagogical learning and discuss how differences among these teachers in terms of social trust and efficacy beliefs may have influenced their learning. Our research demonstrates that although school-university partnerships may hold promise for school improvement efforts, individual teacher factors can mediate the influence of these partnerships on teacher learning and pedagogical change.