The Role of Teachers’ Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulation in Job Performance: Examining the Mediating Role of Teacher Professional Identity

The question of whether psychological characteristics of teachers can predict their teaching performance has drawn considerable interest in educational psychology area. The present study aimed at examining the role of teacher self-efficacy and teacher self-regulation in teacher job performance, mediated by teacher professional identity in the Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) context. To this end the online scales of teacher self-efficacy, teacher self-regulation, teacher professional identity, and teacher job performance were employed in a quantitative correlational study to collect data from 152 EFL teachers purposively selected from different universities in West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, and Ardebil provinces, Iran. Results of the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) showed that teacher self-efficacy and teacher self-regulation did not directly predict teacher job performance but had a significant correlation with teacher professional identity. Furthermore, mediated by teacher professional identity, both teacher self-efficacy and teacher self-regulation could significantly predict teacher job performance. The results of this study could expand social psychological theories against fundamental attribution error. It was concluded that the effect of situational factors outperformed the psychological abilities of Iranian EFL teachers. Moreover, teacher professional identity, as a mediating variable, could significantly strengthen the role of teacher self-efficacy and teacher self-regulation on teacher job performance. Theoretically, the findings can challenge fundamental attribution error by demonstrating that situational factors can neutralize direct effects of psychological traits, suggesting that teacher effectiveness models must equally weight contextual and individual factors. Pedagogically, the findings necessitate institutional reforms to reduce systemic constraints alongside professional development programs that explicitly focus on professional identity formation as the mechanism through which psychological resources can lead to teaching effectiveness.