Towards Standardizing Education: Specific Dispositions for Educators and their Impact on Teacher Efficacy

In today's competitive environment, all professions need standardization and formulation of guidelines. This study develops a comprehensive model of professional characteristics of an Educator that would prepare them for high standards of professional achievements. A vital quality of the educators — ‘teacher efficacy’ — is studied for establishing an association with the various characteristics that would result in identification of specific dispositions. A set of ten vital characteristics were identified which were sorted under three spheres of the educators'. work life. These characteristics were then defined appropriately for the teaching discipline. A questionnaire with sixty items validated for its reliability and validity was then used to collect data from 98 medical professors. The data was processed in statistical package for social sciences to analyse the existing characteristics. Partial Least Squares method was used to build a research model that show the inter-linkages between the characteristics and those with teacher efficacy with their strength of association. A wide range of literature resulted in ten characteristics namely subject knowledge, teaching prowess, updating knowledge, collegiality, commitment, teacher-student relationship, empowerment, self development, remuneration and ethical conduct and a theoretical three-factor model of professional characteristics of educators. The level of the existing professional dispositions for the various demographics is calculated and discussed. A research model depicting the inter-linkages between the ten characteristics and teacher efficacy is developed which is analysed using the t-statistic through partial least squares method. Subject knowledge and updating knowledge leads to teaching prowess Collegiality, teacher-student relationship and empowerment lead to commitment Teaching prowess, commitment, self development, and remuneration correlates to teacher efficacy. Self development, commitment, and subject knowledge have a major impact on teacher efficacy. These characteristics when enhanced will be found to have an enriched teacher efficacy with the educators in the medical stream. It is believed that enhancing of teacher efficacy would result in improving student motivation and student achievement which is the ultimate goal of any institution. It would also have a deep impact on students who will be trained and dealt with in a more proficient approach. The paper limits itself in analysing the inter-linkages of characteristics and their impact on teacher efficacy for the stream of medical educators only. The model may be used for various educational streams. Further study is possible focusing on the impact of these characteristics on students, institution, and the community as a whole.