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Teaching to Whom and with Whom: The Role of Context in Developing Preservice Teachers' Self-Efficacy for Teaching Engineering and Coding via Robotics

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Title: Teaching to Whom and with Whom: The Role of Context in Developing Preservice Teachers' Self-Efficacy for Teaching Engineering and Coding via Robotics
Language: English
Authors: Jennifer Kidd (ORCID 0000-0001-9800-1690), Kristie Gutierrez, Min Jung Lee, Danielle Rhemer, Pilar Pazos, Krishna Kaipa, Stacie Ringleb, Orlando Ayala
Source: International Journal of Technology and Design Education. 2025 35(4):1515-1542.
Availability: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 28
Publication Date: 2025
Sponsoring Agency: National Science Foundation (NSF), Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12)
Contract Number: 1908743
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Elementary Education
Grade 5
Intermediate Grades
Middle Schools
Descriptors: Robotics, Coding, Computer Science Education, Engineering Education, Preservice Teachers, Elementary School Students, Grade 5, College School Cooperation, Videoconferencing, Student Attitudes, Self Efficacy
DOI: 10.1007/s10798-024-09955-w
ISSN: 0957-7572
1573-1804
Abstract: Due to mandates for the inclusion of engineering and computer science standards for K-6 schools nationwide, there is a need to understand how teacher educators can help develop preservice teachers' (PSTs') teaching self-efficacy in these areas. To provide experience teaching and learning engineering and coding, PSTs in an instructional technology course were partnered with undergraduate engineering students in an electromechanical systems course to teach robotics lessons to fifth graders (10-11 year olds) over Zoom. A multi-case study approach explored teaching self-efficacy development for three preservice teachers during their robotics project experiences using multiple data sources, including surveys, reflections, interviews, and Zoom recordings, which were examined to identify how the project's social and intrapersonal context influenced the development of each PST's teaching self-efficacy for engineering and coding. The PSTs gained teaching self-efficacy through all four sources of teaching self-efficacy, although not all PSTs benefited from all four types, nor did they benefit equally. These sources also influenced the PSTs' intention to integrate engineering and coding into their future classrooms. This study demonstrates the potential of providing PSTs with the opportunity to teach robotics to children during their teacher preparation programs to support the development of their teaching self-efficacy for engineering and coding. When conducted in the context of a college course, such opportunities can be thoughtfully structured to leverage positive interactions with peers and elementary students and to take advantage of low-stakes environments, like afterschool clubs, offering PSTs settings rich in sources of self-efficacy information.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: EJ1485399
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0187094072;ogv01sep.25;2025Aug05.03:20;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0187094072-1">Teaching to whom and with whom: the role of context in developing preservice teachers' self-efficacy for teaching engineering and coding via robotics </title> <p>Due to mandates for the inclusion of engineering and computer science standards for K-6 schools nationwide, there is a need to understand how teacher educators can help develop preservice teachers' (PSTs') teaching self-efficacy in these areas. To provide experience teaching and learning engineering and coding, PSTs in an instructional technology course were partnered with undergraduate engineering students in an electromechanical systems course to teach robotics lessons to fifth graders (10–11 year olds) over Zoom. A multi-case study approach explored teaching self-efficacy development for three preservice teachers during their robotics project experiences using multiple data sources, including surveys, reflections, interviews, and Zoom recordings, which were examined to identify how the project's social and intrapersonal context influenced the development of each PST's teaching self-efficacy for engineering and coding. The PSTs gained teaching self-efficacy through all four sources of teaching self-efficacy, although not all PSTs benefited from all four types, nor did they benefit equally. These sources also influenced the PSTs' intention to integrate engineering and coding into their future classrooms. This study demonstrates the potential of providing PSTs with the opportunity to teach robotics to children during their teacher preparation programs to support the development of their teaching self-efficacy for engineering and coding. When conducted in the context of a college course, such opportunities can be thoughtfully structured to leverage positive interactions with peers and elementary students and to take advantage of low-stakes environments, like afterschool clubs, offering PSTs settings rich in sources of self-efficacy information.</p> <p>Keywords: Engineering education; Preservice teacher preparation; Teacher self-efficacy; Engineering; Robotics; Coding; Education Curriculum and Pedagogy Specialist Studies In Education</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-2">Introduction</hd> <p> <emph>The Framework for K-12 Science Education</emph> (National Research Council [NRC], [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref1">48</reflink>]) and the <emph>Next Generation Science Standards</emph> (NGSS; NGSS Lead States, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref2">49</reflink>]) describe a nationwide obligation to integrate engineering design into the structure of science education. In response, engineering is now included in elementary curriculum frameworks. In lessons aligned with these standards, students are tasked with engaging in the engineering design process. This process requires students to define problems, design solutions, and optimize those solutions to particular human problems (NRC, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref3">48</reflink>]). The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine report ([<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref4">47</reflink>]) states that "[a]n evolving understanding of how best to teach science, including the NGSS, represents a significant transition in the way science is currently taught in most classrooms and will require most science teachers to alter the way they teach" (p. 214). Simultaneously, teachers are being asked to address newly adopted computer science standards. As of 2024 in the United States, 43 states had adopted K-12 Computer Science Standards (Code.org, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref5">10</reflink>]). This is a significant increase from just six states in 2017. In the space of seven years, there have been dramatic shifts in what students are expected to learn and what teachers are expected to teach about computer science. In many states, computational thinking and coding are included as key aspects of computer science. In Virginia, where this study takes place, <emph>Algorithms and Programming</emph> is one of six strands addressed in the K-12 Computer Science Standards of Learning, and children are expected to start engaging in coding practices in Kindergarten. The K-8 standards were designed for integration into multiple subject areas, thus teachers need to understand how to incorporate coding activities across the curriculum (Virginia DOE, [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref6">74</reflink>]). In response to these curricular changes, teachers need exposure to new knowledge and pedagogical strategies to incorporate this content into their practice (Reiser et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref7">59</reflink>]). Current literature highlights that few elementary preservice teachers (PSTs) have relevant experience before entering teacher preparation (Hammack & Ivey, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref8">26</reflink>]), and most are not exposed to engineering and coding as part of their academic training. As a result, elementary teachers often feel unprepared to integrate this content into their instruction (Rose et al., [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref9">62</reflink>]).</p> <p>We explored PSTs' teaching self-efficacy, or their assessment of their teaching capabilities, within the domain of engineering and coding. Self-efficacy is developed from social experiences and reflection and is influential in determining outcomes (Bandura, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref10">4</reflink>]). While holistic assessments of teaching self-efficacy can help predict teacher behaviors, efficacy judgments related to specific teaching domains and in specific environments were identified as more valid and reliable predictors of critical outcomes such as teachers' behaviors, effort, and persistence (Tschannen-Moran et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref11">71</reflink>]). Related research suggests teachers, especially novice teachers, benefit from supportive environments and from positive feedback from administration, mentors, and fellow teachers (Clark & Newberry, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref12">9</reflink>]). Given the importance of teachers' social context, a related construct, collective teaching efficacy, has been explored to understand the role that the teaching self-efficacy of a group of teachers (e.g., in a school) has on student outcomes and teacher behaviors (Bandura, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref13">4</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref14">5</reflink>]; Hattie, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref15">30</reflink>]). Higher collective teaching efficacy correlates with higher individual teacher self-efficacy (Tschannen-Moran & Barr, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref16">69</reflink>]) and increased teacher effort and persistence (Goddard et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref17">22</reflink>]), suggesting the vital role collaboration between teachers plays in supporting individual teachers' self-efficacy. However, current research on teacher self-efficacy mainly focuses on teachers working individually in their classrooms, and few studies consider teachers interacting in collaborative or informal settings or the influence of teachers working with small groups or individual students (Zee & Koomen, [<reflink idref="bib78" id="ref18">78</reflink>]). Moreover, research surrounding the influence of contextual factors, including the effect of challenging teaching domains on PSTs' teaching self-efficacy, is limited (Gale et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref19">18</reflink>]).</p> <p>The following study considers the role of contextual factors, including interactions between teaching partners, interactions between teachers and students, and teaching in challenging circumstances, on PST teaching self-efficacy. Specifically, we explored PSTs' experiences teaching a robotics lesson alongside engineering students during a Zoom-based afterschool club for fifth graders (10–11 year olds) and examined how their interactions with their fifth-grade and engineering partners shaped their self-efficacy for teaching engineering. The cases of three PSTs are used to explore this overarching research question: <emph>How did collaboratively teaching robotics to fifth graders, alongside engineering student partners, shape PSTs' self-efficacy for teaching engineering and coding?</emph> The study provides insights into how teacher preparation programs might increase PSTs' self-efficacy in the domain of teaching engineering and coding.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-3">Theoretical framework</hd> <p>Our work aligns with a resource perspective on cognitive structure, which suggests knowing and learning are flexible and affected by context and a person's collection of cognitive resources available to generate ideas (Hammer, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref20">27</reflink>]). This perspective emphasizes that the resources that a person can activate are afforded or constrained by context (Hammer, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref21">28</reflink>]). This context is partly formed by the participants involved, in conjunction with the available ideas, tools, and resources (Sadler, [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref22">63</reflink>]). Context also plays a role in how individuals frame their interpretation of an event, utterance, or situation in terms of their previous experience (Hammer et al., [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref23">29</reflink>]). When placed in a context, we activate a set of resources based on our experiences in a similar context, allowing us to navigate what we should focus on and how we might act.</p> <p>In alignment with this view of knowing and learning, we define self-efficacy as a person's assessment of their capabilities within a specific context, which is developed from the resources activated surrounding previous lived experiences and self-perception or personal framing (Bandura, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref24">4</reflink>]). A teacher's judgment about their self-efficacy is based on their personal resources and framing of the task's difficulty and what it would take for them to succeed in their context (Tschannen-Moran et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref25">71</reflink>]). Therefore, when teachers experience novel tasks in a specific context, they are more likely to reflect on factors affecting their self-efficacy (Gist & Mitchell, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref26">20</reflink>]).</p> <p>We adapt and expand on the Tschannen-Moran et al. ([<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref27">71</reflink>]) integrated model of teaching self-efficacy, which was created to define teaching self-efficacy and facilitate its measurement (Fig. 1). Their model helps delineate how PSTs develop teaching self-efficacy within a specific teaching context. The model portrays the cyclical nature of teacher efficacy, highlighting that the variable degree to which teachers feel efficacious is directly linked to the specific content and context of their teaching. In other words, "teachers feel efficacious for teaching particular subjects to certain students in specific settings" (Tschannen-Moran et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref28">71</reflink>], p. 211).</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 1 Adapted Tschannen-Moran et al. ([<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref29">71</reflink>]) integrated model of teaching efficacy</p> <p>Though Tschannen-Moran et al. ([<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref30">71</reflink>]) acknowledge the importance of context, an explicit notation of context was not represented in their model. In response, we altered the model structure to identify two different contexts that are constantly interacting as they affect teacher self-efficacy: <emph>Social</emph> and <emph>Intrapersonal.</emph> We conceptualized the <emph>Social Context</emph> as the interactive spaces in which lesson activities occur and the <emph>Intrapersonal Context</emph> as the mental space in which teachers process information related to the lesson. We added these groupings to the model to better visualize how different influences contribute to the self-efficacy developmental process. We chose to separate these contexts for clarity, however, we believe that these contexts are highly interactive and thus used a dotted line between them to represent this fluidity. For example, in our study, PSTs' personal resources (<emph>Intrapersonal Context</emph>) affected their interaction with their team members (<emph>Social Context</emph>). Our revised model highlights the importance of social interaction (<emph>Social Context</emph>) and personal reflection (<emph>Intrapersonal Context</emph>) in shaping teaching self-efficacy. An additional adaptation we made relates to terminology. Because the term is more broadly used in the current literature, we use '<emph>Teacher Self-efficacy</emph>' rather than 'Teacher Efficacy' to refer to a teacher's assessment of their teaching capabilities.</p> <p>In our adapted model, the <emph>Social Context</emph> represents observable events in which a teacher interacts with their external environment. Specifically, a teacher engages in a <emph>Performance</emph> which generates <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information.</emph> A <emph>Performance</emph> would include teaching as well as other teaching-related interactions, such as training, planning, or watching a peer, that produce <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information.</emph> These <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph> manifest within each iteration of the cycle and demonstrate how each <emph>Performance</emph> generates additional (i.e., <emph>NEW</emph>) <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph> that affect a teacher's perception of their capabilities. In our study, the <emph>Social Context</emph> includes the PSTs' interactions with their engineering partner(s), elementary student(s), and course instructor(s) and thus represents an instructor's realm of influence over PSTs' teaching self-efficacy development.</p> <p>The <emph>Sources (and NEW Sources) of Efficacy Information</emph> result from social interactions and self-reflection and include the four sources originally described by Bandura ([<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref31">5</reflink>]): verbal persuasion, vicarious experiences, physiological arousal (affect), and mastery experiences. <emph>Verbal Persuasion</emph> occurs when an individual acquires feedback and encouragement from a trusted source. Instruction during teacher preparation and teacher professional development are forms of verbal persuasion (Tschannen-Moran et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref32">71</reflink>]). <emph>Vicarious Experiences</emph> occur as individuals see success modeled through the experiences of others. <emph>Physiological Arousal</emph> influences self-efficacy as individuals take note of changes in their affective state. Positive emotions can signal self-confidence, whereas negative emotions may indicate anxiety about one's ability (Bandura, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref33">5</reflink>]). Lastly, <emph>Mastery Experiences</emph>, which have been considered the most powerful source of efficacy (Tschannen-Moran et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref34">71</reflink>]), include opportunities in which individuals are able to experience success firsthand. Palmer ([<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref35">52</reflink>]) differentiates enactive mastery experiences which are "authentic successes at dealing with a particular situation" (p. 338), in this case teaching, from success in understanding something, which he refers to as cognitive content mastery. The model can account for both. Tschannen-Moran et al. ([<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref36">71</reflink>]) describe the relationship between <emph>Mastery Experience</emph>, <emph>Performance,</emph> and <emph>Teacher Self-efficacy</emph>, stating, "the proficiency of a performance creates a new mastery experience, which provides new information that will be processed to shape future efficacy beliefs" (pp. 233–34). Teachers' efficacy is modified as they experience successes and failures while teaching a lesson within a given context. In our context, PSTs derived <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph> from their actions preparing for, and engaging in, the Zoom teaching sessions.</p> <p>In the <emph>Intrapersonal Context,</emph> teachers process <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph>. Unlike the events in the <emph>Social Context,</emph> which can be observed, the sensemaking process within the <emph>Intrapersonal Context</emph> occurs predominantly within the teacher's own mind. This process begins with <emph>Cognitive Processing,</emph> which describes how teachers interpret <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph>. Teachers weigh sources for their relevance as they analyze a novel, upcoming teaching task and determine their teaching competence. As teachers conduct an <emph>Analysis of Teaching Task</emph> to make sense of what is required to succeed, they pull on cognitive resources and lived experiences regarding their students' abilities and motivation, their understanding of pedagogical and classroom management strategies, as well as other contextual factors to support their sensemaking. Examples of contextual factors include grade level, delivery mode, required materials, content area, and the overall climate and culture of the school or environment. Teachers then conduct an <emph>Assessment of Personal Teaching Competence</emph> to judge whether or not their current "abilities and strategies are adequate for the teaching task in question" (Tschannen-Moran et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref37">71</reflink>], p. 233). Teachers' framing of their competence results in their <emph>Teacher Self-Efficacy</emph> for success in a particular teaching task in a specific context. In this study, the PSTs' assessed their capabilities for teaching robotics over Zoom to their two assigned fifth-grade students.</p> <p>A <emph>Teacher's Self-efficacy</emph> affects what they focus on and how they choose to act in a given context. These internally experienced <emph>Consequences of Teacher Self-Efficacy</emph> (e.g., goals, effort, level of persistence) drive teaching <emph>Performance</emph>. For example, if a teacher frames a teaching act as incredibly difficult, it may induce feelings of low self-efficacy. As they begin teaching, they may choose less complex tasks, set low goals for their students, input minimal effort into the lesson, and fail to persist if the lesson instruction is challenging. This experience will most likely lead to reduced performance outcomes and result in low(er) <emph>Teacher Self-Efficacy</emph> following the teaching task. In contrast, teachers who see a teaching task as achievable may attack it head-on, set high goals for their students, invest additional time in preparation, and persist until they achieve success, thus reinforcing their beliefs in their own capabilities. Accordingly, helping preservice teachers develop a solid foundational <emph>Teacher Self-Efficacy</emph> is essential to the enactment of engineering and coding instruction in their future elementary classrooms.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-4">Literature review</hd> <p>The act of teaching is not instinctual; it must be learned and is incredibly dynamic and complex (Ball & Forzani, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref38">2</reflink>]). Teacher education programs must carefully structure experiences for PSTs to develop the background knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy necessary to teach in their specific context (Palmer, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref39">52</reflink>]). Seminal (e.g., Bandura, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref40">5</reflink>]) and current literature (e.g., George et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref41">19</reflink>]) emphasize the difficulty of increasing teaching self-efficacy once a baseline has been established. Tschannen-Moran et al. ([<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref42">71</reflink>]) and Tshannen-Moran and Hoy ([<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref43">70</reflink>]) emphasize this point, imploring teacher preparation programs to provide authentic teaching experiences to enhance teacher self-efficacy while it is still malleable. Thus, teacher educators must understand what experiences help PSTs form a high sense of teaching self-efficacy. In the following sections, we discuss what is currently known about the role of contextual factors in the development of PSTs' self-efficacy for teaching engineering and coding.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-5">Contextual influences in teacher self-efficacy development</hd> <p>Most teaching self-efficacy research focuses on the <emph>outcomes</emph> of teacher self-efficacy. Researchers tend to examine how teacher self-efficacy affects teacher behaviors and student outcomes instead of how student behavior and teacher interactions influence the development of teaching self-efficacy. Looking at teacher-student interactions as a driver is critical, as educators look to verbal and non-verbal student behavior to assess their self-efficacy (Mottet et al., [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref44">46</reflink>]; Phan & Locke, [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref45">57</reflink>]). When teachers perceive positive student engagement, they are more likely to feel efficacious. In contrast, unsuccessful student interactions can elicit stress and negative emotions that diminish confidence (Spilt et al., [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref46">68</reflink>]; Tsouloupas et al., [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref47">73</reflink>]). Such negative personal feelings, cognitions, and efficacy beliefs are more salient in less experienced teachers (Emmer & Stough, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref48">16</reflink>]), leaving PSTs particularly vulnerable to harmful effects from negative interpersonal interactions with students. Meanwhile, satisfying experiences with students lead to high levels of teaching self-efficacy (Hajovsky et al., [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref49">25</reflink>]; Zee & Koomen, [<reflink idref="bib78" id="ref50">78</reflink>]). Tschannen-Moran et al. ([<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref51">71</reflink>]) posited that evaluative feedback from students influences teacher self-efficacy. This form of social persuasion has received little attention in studies of K-12 teachers. In contrast, at the university level, educators have frequently described the importance of student feedback, sometimes giving it more credence than feedback from supervisors (Morris & Usher, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref52">44</reflink>]). More research is needed to understand how student feedback and behavior affect teaching self-efficacy.</p> <p>Research suggests teachers, especially novice teachers, benefit from supportive environments and positive feedback from administration, mentors, and fellow teachers (Korte & Simonsen, [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref53">38</reflink>]). Social interactions exert a particularly strong influence on beginning teachers' self-efficacy as teachers who have not already solidified their assessment of their capabilities may look to external sources to verify their competence (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref54">70</reflink>]). Teachers who collaborate in supportive teams tend to have stronger self-efficacy beliefs than those who do not (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref55">70</reflink>]). Furthermore, when teachers work in successful teams, they develop collective self-efficacy (Donohoo, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref56">13</reflink>]) or a shared belief that they can be successful. Studies have shown strong associations between collective teaching efficacy and student achievement (Donohoo et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref57">14</reflink>]; Eells, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref58">15</reflink>]; Hattie, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref59">30</reflink>]). When teachers in a school collectively believe they can influence student outcomes, achievement is likely to be higher (Bandura, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref60">4</reflink>]). Collective self-efficacy correlates with individual teacher self-efficacy (Tschannen-Moran & Barr, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref61">69</reflink>]), increased teacher effort, and persistence (Goddard et al., [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref62">22</reflink>]), suggesting school culture notably influences teacher self-efficacy.</p> <p>Setting is an important factor in teacher self-efficacy. Studies (e.g., Poulou, [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref63">58</reflink>]; Seung et al., [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref64">66</reflink>]) found significant gains for PSTs teaching in non-traditional teaching and learning spaces, such as afterschool programs. As afterschool programs are typically non-compulsory, and participating children tend to be interested in the subject matter, they may be an ideal context to engage PSTs in mastery experiences that can improve their self-efficacy. PSTs have a good chance of success when they engage with a small number of motivated students in a low-stress setting (Baldwin, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref65">1</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-6">Contextual influences in PST self-efficacy for teaching engineering and coding</hd> <p>Engineering and coding are newly required content areas for elementary teachers (Banilower et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref66">3</reflink>]; Code.org et al., [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref67">10</reflink>]). Teacher education programs need to nurture teaching self-efficacy generally, as well as teaching self-efficacy specifically for engineering and coding to help PSTs learn new content and adopt new practices (Kazempour & Sadler, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref68">34</reflink>]; Mason & Rich, [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref69">43</reflink>]; Velthuis et al., [<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref70">75</reflink>]). Teachers with a stronger sense of efficacy tend to be more receptive to new ideas and innovative teaching methods than teachers with lower self-efficacy (Nie et al., [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref71">50</reflink>]; Tschannen-Moran & McMaster, [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref72">72</reflink>]). Furthermore, recent studies (e.g., Hammack & Ivey, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref73">26</reflink>]; Perkins-Coppola, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref74">55</reflink>]; Rich et al., [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref75">61</reflink>]) have found that teachers' lack of self-efficacy in teaching engineering and coding is a barrier to their enactment of engineering instruction in their elementary classrooms. Only 3% of elementary teachers report high confidence in teaching engineering nationally (Banilower et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref76">3</reflink>]).</p> <p>If we expect teachers to integrate engineering and coding into their teaching practice, teacher educators must understand how to design experiences that generate positive sources of efficacy information for teaching engineering and coding. However, research on how to introduce coding and engineering to help PSTs gain confidence in these new content areas is currently limited. Mastery teaching experiences are thought to be the most powerful source of teaching efficacy (Bautista, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref77">6</reflink>]; Tschannen-Moran et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref78">71</reflink>]) and for engineering teaching self-efficacy as well. Perkins-Coppola ([<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref79">55</reflink>]) found that teaching engineering and coding lessons served as mastery experiences and enhanced PSTs' teaching self-efficacy in those areas. Kaya et al. ([<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref80">33</reflink>]) demonstrated the influence of cognitive content mastery (Palmer, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref81">52</reflink>]) on engineering teaching self-efficacy when they introduced the engineering design process in elementary science teaching methods courses and found an increase in PSTs' engineering teaching self-efficacy beliefs. Vicarious experiences, such as watching an instructor teach an engineering lesson while participating as a student, have also been found to significantly affect PSTs' engineering teaching self-efficacy (Webb & LoFaro, [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref82">76</reflink>]). Team teaching also promotes vicarious learning. Research examining co-teaching teams of engineering students and either in-service teachers (Bers & Portsmore, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref83">7</reflink>]) or preservice teachers (Cima et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref84">8</reflink>]; Gutierrez et al. [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref85">24</reflink>]; Fogg-Rodgers et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref86">17</reflink>]) found positive benefits for both groups, including increases in PST self-efficacy for teaching engineering (Pazos et al., [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref87">54</reflink>]; Lewis et al., [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref88">39</reflink>]). These results are promising, but little is understood about the role of contextual factors, such as social interactions between co-teachers, in teaching self-efficacy development, and therefore, teacher educators lack the knowledge for designing co-teaching experiences to foster teaching self-efficacy development.</p> <p>This study aims to examine PSTs' experiences teaching robotics alongside engineering students in an afterschool club for fifth graders, focusing on how these interactions shape PSTs' self-efficacy within the domain of teaching engineering and coding. This context, rich in social interactions with classmates, engineering students, instructors, and fifth graders, provides a unique opportunity to uncover how social interactions create opportunities for PSTs to develop self-efficacy for teaching engineering and coding through mastery experiences, vicarious learning, social persuasion, and physiological responses. By considering the importance of both <emph>with whom</emph> and <emph>to whom</emph> PSTs engage in teaching practice, we reveal how social interactions support PSTs' professional growth. Insights from this study can encourage teacher educators to incorporate collaborative teaching experiences in PSTs' professional preparation.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-7">Methods</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187094072-8">Study context</hd> <p>This case study is part of an NSF-funded initiative, <emph>Ed+gineering</emph>, to prepare elementary-level preservice teachers (PSTs) to integrate engineering into their instruction. To increase their engineering knowledge and confidence in teaching engineering, PSTs in the program were paired with undergraduate engineering students to develop and teach engineering lessons to elementary students. In this study, PSTs in an instructional technology course (taught by the first author) in a Virginia university were partnered with engineering students in an electromechanical systems course (taught by the sixth author) to deliver robotics instruction to fifth graders during an afterschool technology club that met during the college students' class times. A robotics project was selected because it fuses coding and engineering, and growing evidence supports robotics as a powerful approach to STEM learning for PSTs (Jaipal-Jamani & Angeli, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref89">31</reflink>]; Schina et al., [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref90">65</reflink>]). An afterschool club setting was chosen because it allowed PSTs to practice teaching in a low-stakes space unrestrained by curricular requirements that would have inhibited their ability to teach a multi-day inquiry-based lesson (Peterson & Fix, [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref91">56</reflink>]). Engineering students were selected as collaborators because they were studying the content areas in which the PSTs needed to develop mastery (i.e., engineering and coding) and were expected to already possess some expertise. Finally, fifth graders who expressed interest in technology were invited to participate because it was presumed they would be motivated to engage in robotics activities.</p> <p>The intervention occurred in Spring 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, both collaborating courses and the club sessions were conducted entirely via Zoom. Each PST was paired with one or two engineering students and assigned to teach two fifth graders. Working in these teams, the students tackled a novel design challenge: design, build, and code a bio-inspired COVID-companion robot to comfort individuals during the pandemic. As the students were not co-located, each team collaboratively developed a shared vision for their COVID companion while each participant built and coded their own robot. Each participant's robot was expected to utilize lights, sound, movement, and sensing to interact with a user.</p> <p>Before meeting the fifth-grade students, the PSTs met with their engineering partners during four class sessions, each for an hour. The first session introduced the project and provided time for team building. Three subsequent sessions focused on technical skill development: introducing the Hummingbird Robotics Kits® used for the project; programming LEDs, speakers, servo motors, and sensors; and designing a simple mechanism. The college students were required to meet once outside of class to plan their lesson for the fifth graders and complete a collaboration agreement where they shared their personal goals (i.e., what they wanted to learn from the experience) and established team communication processes. All team members were provided a robotics kit to use for the duration of the project.</p> <p>The robotics instruction for the fifth graders occurred over five, 1.5-hour Zoom sessions with all participants working remotely, typically from their homes. Teams met in breakout rooms to work on their robots while the two instructors and three teaching assistants moved between rooms to assist as needed. The project was introduced to the children during the first club session. The teams had three sessions to design their robots, with an optional fourth session available as needed.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-9">Data collection and analysis</hd> <p>This study examines three elementary PSTs' experiences: Lisa, Madison, and Kayla (pseudonyms), using a multiple-embedded case study approach (Yin, [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref92">77</reflink>]). We chose a case study design because it centers "contextualized deep understanding" and favors the interaction between case and context (Marshall et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref93">42</reflink>], p. 24). We selected these three cases because they represent a range of outcomes in terms of the success of the teams' robots and the relationships the PSTs had with their fifth-grade and engineering partners. The variations allowed us to examine connections between these factors and the PSTs' self-efficacy. Other team members (i.e., undergraduate engineering students, fifth graders) were part of the social context in which the project occurred and affected the PSTs' experiences, and thus, their interactions with the PSTs are discussed. However, their internal experiences are not explored as they were not the focus of the study. At times, the PSTs speculate on their partners' motivations. We included these inferences, but they should not be interpreted as the actual experiences of those individuals. Instead, each case is bounded by the perspective and experience of the PST (Yin, [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref94">77</reflink>]). All team members consented to participate in the study.</p> <p>To understand the PSTs' experiences and increase the trustworthiness of our findings, multiple data sources were collected, analyzed, and triangulated (Creswell & Poth, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref95">11</reflink>]), including both self-report and observational data, as suggested by Morris et al. ([<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref96">45</reflink>]). We examined (a) PST coursework (e.g., "About Me" webpages, lesson plans) to characterize the PSTs and describe their past experiences with engineering and teaching; (b) mid- and post-semester Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME; Ohland et al., [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref97">51</reflink>]) survey responses to understand PSTs' relationship with their engineering partner(s); (c) end-of-course short-answer reflections, including questions such as "How confident would you be in your ability to teach engineering and coding? Why?" to understand PSTs' overall experience and self-efficacy for teaching engineering and coding; (d) Zoom session recordings and transcripts to observe PSTs teaching and interacting with teammates; and (e) follow-up interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the PSTs' experiences and to confirm our interpretations of the earlier data.</p> <p>An iterative, holistic analysis process was employed to examine the data and reconstruct each case (Creswell & Poth, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref98">11</reflink>]; Marshall et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref99">42</reflink>]). First, the data from sources (a) through (d) was collaboratively coded by teams of two researchers (one team per PST) using an agreed-upon codebook to identify lesson events and PST sentiments related to roles, confidence, interactions with engineering and fifth-grade partners, and affect. These a priori themes were selected because of their connection to the four sources of self-efficacy. Identified data from all sources were then compiled for each PST and considered holistically to produce a detailed description of the PST's behaviors and beliefs throughout the project. Accordingly, the descriptions were based on observational data (e.g., participants' behavior during the lessons), PST evaluations (e.g., CATME), PST written work (e.g., assignments), and PST reflections on their experiences following their lessons. After the descriptions were written, the researchers conducted follow-up interviews to validate their interpretations and clarify any questions about the PSTs' experiences. This collaboration and participant review process was employed to enhance the trustworthiness of the data (Marshall et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref100">42</reflink>]). The interviews also allowed the researchers to learn more about the PSTs' personalities, prior education, and perceptions of their experiences and incorporate characterizations of each PST into the narrative descriptions.</p> <p>After completing these initial descriptions, the researchers analyzed each PST's experience based on Tschannen-Moran et al.'s ([<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref101">71</reflink>]) framework. The PSTs' behaviors and beliefs were categorized based on the constructs in the adapted version of the framework to understand how they related to the PSTs' teaching self-efficacy, as detailed below. We then compiled each PST's case by tracing the development of their teaching self-efficacy for engineering and coding based on our adapted model. Narratives were generated using the PST's own words and descriptions of lesson events from the Zoom recordings as much as possible, but they also included the researchers' inferences based on observations across all data sources.</p> <p>To examine the influence of each PST's <emph>Social Context</emph> on their self-efficacy development, we considered data related to the PST's <emph>Performance</emph> and <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph>. Data related to the lesson preparation and teaching actions were utilized to represent each PST's <emph>Performance</emph>. The product-based lesson outcomes (e.g., the success of the team's robots) were also considered. The <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph> data comprised project events that likely influenced the PSTs' cognitive content mastery or teaching self-efficacy, such as the interactions between the PSTs and their teammates and instructors.</p> <p>After characterizing each PST's <emph>Social Context</emph>, we considered how each PST interpreted their teaching task and derived meaning from the lesson events. In so doing, we ventured away from observable behaviors occurring within the social context and into each PST's personal thoughts and beliefs. To describe each PST's <emph>Intrapersonal Context</emph>, we focused on data related to the sensemaking and attitude adoption that occurred within the PSTs' minds. This data included the reported thoughts and feelings of each PST as well as inferences based on what we observed in the videos, heard in the interviews, and read in the reflections. The <emph>Cognitive Processing</emph> of each PST includes their <emph>Analysis of their Teaching Task</emph> and <emph>Assessment of Personal Teaching Competence.</emph> The data for the PST's <emph>Analysis of their Teaching Task</emph> included their expressed goal for their sessions and their account of the contextual factors that supported or hindered their ability to meet their goals. To understand each PST's <emph>Assessment of Personal Teaching Competence,</emph> we examined data focused on their evaluation of their <emph>Performance</emph> and success in teaching their fifth-grade partners. To characterize each PST's <emph>Teacher Self-Efficacy,</emph> we considered data pertaining to confidence in their ability to teach engineering and coding to future students. Finally, to explore <emph>Consequences of Teacher Efficacy</emph>, which are the attitudes and behaviors that shape future <emph>Performance</emph> and, thus, future teacher efficacy, we considered each PST's expressed interests and goals in teaching engineering and coding in the future.</p> <p>Once the individual cases were fully developed, the researchers began the cross-case analysis. They compared the experiences of the PSTs across each model construct, looking for patterns within and across the cases (Yin, [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref102">77</reflink>]). The first author began this process by systematically comparing each PST's experience across each model component. For example, she repeatedly reviewed the information in each PST's case related to their <emph>Performance,</emph> looking for similarities and differences. She then compiled a draft of the cross-case analysis and conferred with the first four authors until a narrative was produced that they all agreed upon. When the cross-case analysis was complete, the narratives of the individual cases were reduced to lists of bulleted observations for brevity. The full narrative descriptions of each PST case were preserved and will be published elsewhere.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-10">Findings and discussion</hd> <p>To explore how PSTs develop self-efficacy for teaching engineering and coding, this study presents and then compares the cases of three elementary PSTs who were paired with undergraduate engineering students to teach fifth graders to design, build, and code bio-inspired COVID companion robots during a Zoom-based afterschool technology club. To organize our findings, we first share a bulleted list summary of each case, mapping them onto our adapted version of Tschannen-Moran et al.'s integrated model of teaching self-efficacy (1998). The model is divided into <emph>Social Context</emph> and <emph>Intrapersonal Context</emph> to help locate where influential activities occurred. Activities occurring in the <emph>Social Context</emph> were usually observable participant interactions. Activities occurring in the <emph>Intrapersonal Context</emph> were usually invisible mental processes. The summaries in Table 1 start with a brief introduction of the PSTs. The table is divided to present data related to each model component. The description of the <emph>Social Context</emph> components begins with an overview listing the people within each PST's team and the extent to which they engaged in the project activities. We then list the components within the <emph>Social Context</emph>, namely the PST's <emph>Performance</emph> and <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph>. Finally, we list the components within the <emph>Intrapersonal Context</emph>: the PSTs' <emph>Analysis of the Teaching Task</emph>, their <emph>Assessment of Personal Teaching Competenc</emph>e, their <emph>Teaching Efficacy</emph>, and the <emph>Consequences of their Teacher Efficacy</emph>.</p> <p>Table 1 PST individual case summaries</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p><bold>Lisa</bold></p></th><th align="left"><p><bold>Madison</bold></p></th><th align="left"><p><bold>Kayla</bold></p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>• White female</p><p>• Highly social</p><p>• Background and prior degree in theater</p></td><td align="left"><p>• White female</p><p>• Highly conscientious</p><p>• Interest in the arts</p><p>• Associate degree in developmental psychology</p></td><td align="left"><p>• White female with Mexican heritage</p><p>• Mother of two young children</p><p>• Experience as an electrician in the US Navy</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p><bold>Social Context</bold></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p><italic>Overview</italic></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>• Engineering student partners: Felicity (Black female) and Gerry (White male)</p><p> ○ Minimally invested</p><p> ○ Attended inconsistently</p><p>• Fifth-grade partners: Jalisa and Nevaeh (Black females)</p><p> ○ Initially shy to engage</p><p> ○ Eventually tenacious</p><p> ○ Attended inconsistently</p></td><td align="left"><p>• Engineering student partner: Drake (Black male)</p><p> ○ Not fully committed</p><p> ○ Attended consistently</p><p>• Fifth-grade partners: Anthony (White male) and Henry (Multiracial male)</p><p> ○ Excellent collaborators</p><p> ○ Enthusiastic, helpful, funny</p><p> ○ Attended consistently</p><p> ○ Worked on robots outside of Zoom sessions</p></td><td align="left"><p>• Engineering student partner: Conner (White male)</p><p> ○ Highly involved, supportive, and eager to succeed</p><p> ○ Attended consistently</p><p>• Fifth-grade partners: Kaleb (Black male)</p><p> ○ Enthusiastic</p><p> ○ Attended consistently</p><p> ○ Worked on robot outside of Zoom sessions</p><p>• James (White male)</p><p> ○ Busy with other activities</p><p> ○ Attended inconsistently</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p><italic>Performance/Teaching Interactions</italic></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Preparation/Instruction</p><p>• Led all sessions</p><p>• Delivered minimal pre-planned instruction</p><p>• Addressed issues as they arose</p><p>• Worked on robot concurrently with students</p><p>Robot Conception</p><p>• The team planned tissue-pulling bunny-inspired robots</p><p>• Lisa's robot (below) is constructed from a cardboard box with LEDs for eyes, a motion sensor for a nose, and an arm attached to the side intended to rotate via a position servo motor to pull tissues</p><p><inline-graphic href="MediaObjects/10798_2024_9955_Figa_HTML.gif" /></p><p>Outcomes</p><p>• Experienced difficulty with tissue-pulling mechanism</p><p>• Neither she nor her fifth-graders produced functional robots</p></td><td align="left"><p>Preparation/Instruction</p><p>• Practiced coding to be able to teach independently</p><p>• Prepared elaborate instructional materials</p><p>• Planned/led all sessions</p><p>• Provided almost all instruction</p><p>• Led extra sessions for fifth graders</p><p>Robot Conception</p><p>• The team designed cat-inspired robots that played music and wagged their tails when petted</p><p>• Madison's robot (below) was constructed from rolled cardboard covered by fur, a styrofoam head featuring LED eyes and a retractable tongue powered by a rotation servo motor, a collar with an embedded motion sensor, and a position servo motor-powered wagging tail</p><p><inline-graphic href="MediaObjects/10798_2024_9955_Figb_HTML.gif" /></p><p>Outcomes</p><p>• Madison, Anthony, and Henry produced successful robots</p><p>• Madison's robot included a tongue-lapping mechanism and received an audience choice award</p></td><td align="left"><p>Preparation/Instruction</p><p>• Preferred off-screen tasks (e.g., preparing videos, communicating with parents)</p><p>• Played a predominantly supportive role, especially during coding instruction</p><p>• Increased role over time, played a larger role in supporting robot building</p><p>• Led extra session for Kaleb</p><p>• Engaged actively despite caring for her own children simultaneously</p><p>Robot Conception</p><p>• The team designed parrot-inspired robots that flapped their wings in response to a sound trigger</p><p>• Kayla's robot (below) was constructed from cardboard and tissue paper with LEDs for eyes and on its wings, a sound sensor embedded in its chest which triggered wing flapping powered by a position servo, and a motion sensor placed at the bottom back intended to trigger rolling via rotation servos mounted on the base</p><p><inline-graphic href="MediaObjects/10798_2024_9955_Figc_HTML.gif" /></p><p>Outcomes</p><p>• Kayla and Kaleb successfully completed their robots</p><p>• James was unable to finish his robot in the sessions he attended</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p><italic>Sources of Teaching Efficacy Information</italic></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Verbal Persuasion/Vicarious Experience</p><p>• Perceived little to no encouragement, verbal persuasion, or opportunities for vicarious learning from Felicity and Gerry</p><p>• Validated when the instructor acknowledged the difficulty of the task</p><p>• Assured when classmates endured similar difficulties</p><p>Physiological States</p><p>• Experienced distress via:</p><p> ○ Ongoing frustration with engineering partners</p><p> ○ Fifth graders' hesitance to interact</p><p> ○ Unrelenting technical challenges</p><p>Mastery Experiences</p><p>• Successfully built/coded robot during training (cognitive content mastery)</p><p>• Helped students persevere through multiple trials (teaching mastery)</p></td><td align="left"><p>Verbal Persuasion/Vicarious Experience</p><p>• Perceived little encouragement and few opportunities for vicarious learning from Drake</p><p>• Derived motivation and confidence from the instructor's faith in her</p><p>Physiological States</p><p>• Appeared joyful in the sessions and reported enjoying collaborating with her fifth graders</p><p>• Worried that fifth graders would be disappointed when they had to abandon plans for a tongue-lapping mechanism after struggling with the construction</p><p>• Relieved and pleased to see fifth graders quickly rebound and achieve fully functioning robots</p><p>• Expressed pride in the accomplishments of her team</p><p>Mastery Experiences</p><p>• Successfully built/coded robot during training and while preparing independently to teach (cognitive content mastery)</p><p>• Successfully guided her students to create functioning robots (engineering/coding teaching mastery)</p></td><td align="left"><p>Verbal Persuasion/Vicarious Experience</p><p>• Gained comfort with coding from interacting with Conner during training/preparation (verbal persuasion)</p><p>• Concluded that Conner had more knowledge than she did, but decided this was acceptable</p><p>• Appeared to gain confidence from watching Conner (vicarious exp)</p><p>• Reported benefiting from Conner's high expectations and confidence in the team (experienced a sense of collective efficacy)</p><p>Physiological States</p><p>• Appeared joyful in the sessions</p><p>• Disappointed by James' disengagement</p><p>• Pleased and excited by Kaleb's enthusiasm and success</p><p>Mastery Experiences</p><p>• Successfully built/coded a winch during training and successfully completed her parrot robot (cognitive content mastery)</p><p>• Helped Kaleb successfully complete his robot (engineering/coding teaching mastery)</p><p>• Helped her own children learn about coding and robotics (engineering/coding teaching mastery)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p><bold>Intrapersonal Context</bold></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p><italic>Analysis of the Teaching Task</italic></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>• Described task as very challenging</p><p>• Discussed difficulty engaging students who are shy/hesitant to interact online</p><p>• Described other difficulties of teaching via Zoom, including the inability to model physical behaviors</p><p>• Lamented the lack of assistance from engineering partners</p><p>• Reframed goal from producing functional robots to helping students be comfortable</p></td><td align="left"><p>• Discussed difficulty engaging students who are shy/hesitant to interact online</p><p>• Described other difficulties of teaching via Zoom, including guiding students without seeing what they were doing</p><p>• Described strong commitment from 5th graders and support from their parents</p><p>• Described plan to let 5th graders fail and learn from their mistakes—while ensuring they had a positive experience</p><p>• Had to be more directive than she initially planned to ensure success</p></td><td align="left"><p>• Discussed difficulty engaging students who are shy/hesitant to interact online</p><p>• Described other difficulties of teaching via Zoom, including the inability to physically assist them or provide materials</p><p>• Described good support from Conner (engineering partner)</p><p>• Shifted goal from completing the robots to learning how to work with the students</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p><italic>Assessment of Personal Teaching Competence</italic></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>• Acknowledged inability to create functioning robots</p><p>• Questioned her capabilities and process</p><p>• Attributed difficulty to both external and internal factors</p><p>• Perceived success in helping students interact online and persevere through multiple trials</p><p>• Perceived sense of success from creating an engineering lesson plan and presentation</p></td><td align="left"><p>• Felt very confident in her ability to teach robotics to her fifth graders</p><p>• Met her goals and felt proud of her team's accomplishments</p></td><td align="left"><p>• Believed she contributed substantially to the students' success</p><p>• Felt successful teaching Kaleb who was enthusiastic and completed his robot</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p><italic>Teaching Efficacy</italic></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>• Gained general teaching efficacy</p><p>• Expressed more comfort teaching engineering than coding</p><p>• Expressed lacked of confidence for teaching coding</p></td><td align="left"><p>• Gained considerable teaching efficacy for engineering and coding</p><p>• Gained general teaching efficacy</p><p>• Expressed confidence in her ability to teach engineering and coding in the future</p></td><td align="left"><p>• Gained teaching efficacy for engineering and coding, especially at an elementary level</p><p>• Hesitated to describe herself as fully confident to teach engineering and coding</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p><italic>Consequences of Teacher Efficacy</italic></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>• Lacked full confidence with engineering and coding but conveyed a willingness to learn more</p><p>• Indicated interest in integrating engineering noting its pervasiveness</p><p>• Expressed less interest in teaching coding on account of its inappropriateness for young children</p></td><td align="left"><p>• Expressed plans to engage future students in engineering and making in line with expertise in art and creativity</p><p>• Expressed plans to teach coding to third graders if employed at that level</p></td><td align="left"><p>• Described the project as building her confidence to teach engineering and coding</p><p>• Expressed ability to teach coding at a basic level</p><p>• Expressed strong intention to teach engineering</p><p>• Noted benefits of early exposure to coding</p><p>• Reported seeking out coding activities for her own young children</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Tracing the PSTs' development through our adapted version of Tschannen-Moran et al.'s ([<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref103">71</reflink>]) integrated model of teaching self-efficacy, we were able to see how the unique <emph>Social Context</emph> of the project enabled PSTs to gain teaching self-efficacy through all four known sources: mastery, physiological arousal, vicarious experience, and verbal persuasion, although not all PSTs benefited from all four types, nor did they benefit equally. We were particularly interested in the PSTs' social interactions during the project and how those interactions generated different <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph> that then influenced the PSTs' processing in their <emph>Intrapersonal Context</emph> and, ultimately, their <emph>Teaching Self-efficacy</emph>. To understand more about the influence of each PST's social interactions, we completed a cross-case analysis (Yin, [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref104">77</reflink>]) comparing the <emph>Social Context</emph> for the three PSTs and analyzed how these differences, in conjunction with their interpretations, affected their self-efficacy to teach engineering and coding.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-11">Cross-case analysis</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187094072-12">Social context</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187094072-13">Performance</hd> <p>Despite being in similar <emph>Social Contexts</emph> where they collaborated with engineering students to teach robotics virtually to fifth-graders, each PST's experience was different, and as such, so were their outcomes. One way their experiences differed was in their interactions and satisfaction with their engineering partners. Our prior research found that PSTs' satisfaction with their engineering partners correlated with their assessment of the project's success and overall value (Pazos et al. [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref105">53</reflink>]; Gutierrez et al. [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref106">24</reflink>]). PSTs who were more satisfied with their partners tended to rate the project more highly. As was the case here, PSTs' satisfaction was often tied to their perceptions of workload, with PSTs in more balanced relationships feeling more satisfied. Interestingly, we found that PSTs' satisfaction with their engineering partner did not have a linear relationship with their self-efficacy (Kidd, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref107">36</reflink>]), instead, it was mediated by their <emph>Performance</emph>, especially when PSTs shouldered greater teaching responsibility due to an underperforming engineering partner. PSTs who adopted dominant teaching roles, because they felt they could not rely on their engineering partner, tended to report increases in their self-efficacy, but the degree of increase and final outcome was tied to their physiological responses and assessment of their success. PSTs who felt successful in the dominant role reported high levels of self-efficacy, whereas PSTs who felt overwhelmed by their increased teaching responsibility and/or unsuccessful tended to show only modest gains in self-efficacy and finish with lower levels than their more successful peers (Kidd, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref108">36</reflink>]).</p> <p>An example of this complex interplay between a PST's <emph>Performance</emph> and teaching self-efficacy can be seen in the outcomes for Lisa and Madison. Both PSTs led the robotics instruction on their teams because they were uncomfortable with their engineering partners' passivity; however, their performance outcomes were dissimilar–Madison felt successful, while Lisa believed she let her students down because they were unable to achieve functional robots. The ways that the PSTs framed success, as well as the ways that they interacted with their engineering partners within the <emph>Social Context</emph>, contributed to these outcomes. Madison set high expectations for herself and was unsatisfied with Drake's investment level, despite his presence at all the sessions. As a result, she dedicated extensive time to developing the expertise she needed to achieve her goal independently. She planned and led all robotics instruction. She also chose to build her robot ahead of the children so she could anticipate, plan for, and solve any problems before the sessions and not be distracted by her own build during the meetings. Madison achieved an excellent outcome, but it came at the expense of her personal time. This highlights the primary way Madison saw and enacted her role, leading her students to engineer a robot, within the <emph>Performance</emph> of the lesson. Lisa's story was different. She described herself as someone who likes socializing and lamented the lack of engagement she perceived from her more reserved teammates. Lisa adopted a learn-as-you-go approach after requesting, but not receiving, the assistance she wanted from her engineering partners. She built her robot alongside the students and struggled with the same challenges they did. Ultimately, she did not have adequate time to engineer a successful solution. If Madison or Lisa had been partnered with engineers they perceived to be more invested and upon whom they felt they could rely, it is likely their <emph>Performances</emph>, and the subsequent influence on their teaching self-efficacy may have been very different. For example, had the engineering students expressed confidence in their PST partner's ability or spent time teaching the children, the PSTs may have been able to gain self-efficacy via verbal persuasion or vicarious exposure.</p> <p>Lisa, Madison, and Kayla all discussed being motivated to provide their fifth graders with good learning experiences. However, the students' behaviors influenced the degree of the PST's motivation as well as their confidence. Lisa was disheartened by her fifth graders' tepid response to her attempt to engage them during their first session. She shared personal information about her life to forge a connection with the girls and was surprised when they still did not want to turn on their cameras. This perceived rejection may have dampened her motivation to invest the time she needed to build her robot without adequate assistance from her engineering partners. Kayla explained how working with James, her less enthusiastic fifth grader, left her feeling disappointed while assisting Kaleb, who was full of enthusiasm, boosted her confidence. Madison described her students as excellent collaborators and a joy to work with. Their investment in the project may have helped motivate Madison to dedicate substantial time outside of class to developing her expertise in coding. These findings linking the satisfaction of the PSTs' relationships with their students to their self-efficacy are similar to findings from Hajovsky et al. ([<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref109">25</reflink>]), showing that the closeness of student–teacher relationships influences teacher efficacy and other studies showing strong connections between student behavior and <emph>Teacher Self-efficacy</emph> (e.g., Emmer & Stough, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref110">16</reflink>]; Mottet et al., [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref111">46</reflink>]; Zee & Koomen, [<reflink idref="bib78" id="ref112">78</reflink>]). Lisa acknowledged this phenomenon when she noted how her confidence increased whenever her fifth graders' participation increased.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-14">Sources of efficacy information</hd> <p>As illustrated in the model, although all of the PSTs were exposed to <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph> during the project, each PST's unique experience with those sources affected their teaching self-efficacy. This was due not only to the differences in the PST's <emph>Social Contexts</emph> which afforded them the opportunity to interact with different <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph>, but also due to the individual ways in which they processed their experience in their <emph>Intrapersonal Context</emph>. In other words, it is not only the exposure to the <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph> that was important but how the PSTs responded to their experiences and what the PSTs took away from these interactions.</p> <p>Beginning with a discussion of potential sources of verbal persuasion, all three PSTs had similar opportunities to receive feedback from their instructor, teaching assistants, and classmates. Likewise, as students in the same course, they had similar opportunities to experience the collective efficacy of the class. Lisa and Kayla felt well supported by their instructor, but Madison described something more. She said she was motivated by the faith her instructor had in her. Madison may have been motivated to learn additional technical skills in order to live up to her teacher's expectations (Bandura, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref113">5</reflink>]). In addition to providing individual support to the PSTs, the instructor was largely responsible for framing the overall goals of the project thus supporting the collective efficacy of the class. Goddard et al. ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref114">22</reflink>]) explain that "collective teacher efficacy beliefs influence the level of effort and persistence that individual teachers put forth in their daily work" (p. 502). When the instructor assigned the PSTs to teach robotics to the fifth graders, she set the expectation that the PSTs could succeed. This collective efficacy may have contributed to the PSTs' individual teaching self-efficacy (Goddard & Goddard, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref115">21</reflink>]). Overall, this finding implies that an instructor's verbal persuasion can be a significant contributor to building PSTs' confidence in teaching engineering and coding by inspiring investment in content mastery. Another example of collective self-efficacy was seen within the team of Kayla and Conner. As part of a productive team, Kayla benefitted from the team's collective self-efficacy. Conner believed in the team's success and this conviction acted as verbal persuasion, boosting Kayla's confidence. This verbal persuasion may have also increased her investment, which in turn increased her preparation, success, and upon reflection, self-efficacy (Salanova et al., [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref116">64</reflink>]). This is evidenced by Kayla's increasing teaching role over time and her willingness to independently hold a Zoom session for Kaleb outside of club time.</p> <p>Literature in the field (e.g., Webb & LoFaro, [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref117">76</reflink>]) has discussed the beneficial role of positive vicarious experiences on PSTs' engineering teaching self-efficacy. Our findings bolster this work. The pairing of Conner and Kayla allowed Kayla to learn and gain confidence from the vicarious experience of watching someone whom she believed had more knowledge about how to teach engineering. Specifically, Kayla witnessed and engaged in what she believed to be successful teaching, which positively affected her self-efficacy. Meanwhile, Lisa and Madison had few occasions to develop self-efficacy from direct interactions with their engineering partners. However, Lisa was able to maintain self-efficacy by observing her classmates' experiences, which she perceived to be similar to her own. Lisa's ability to notice that other groups were also having difficulty designing and coding working robots allowed her to see that completing a working robot was not the only marker indicating a successful teaching experience.</p> <p>Physiological responses played an important part in the PSTs' efficacy development. The PSTs' affective responses were mostly tied to their perceptions of their students' engagement and success. Considering that teachers measure their competence based on their perceptions of their students' learning and behavior (Guskey, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref118">23</reflink>]), Kayla and Madison both reaped benefits from teaching enthusiastic children who created successful robots. The children's successes likely further convinced Kayla and Madison of their teaching capabilities, creating positive physiological arousal in the form of joy, excitement, and pride. Another example of the positive influence of physiological influences was evident when Kayla and Kaleb can be seen smiling and laughing in the Zoom sessions in response to Conner's enthusiasm. In contrast, Lisa's physiological responses exerted a negative influence on her self-efficacy. She reported feeling discouraged and frustrated by the low engagement levels of her engineering partners and what she described as shyness from her fifth graders. All of her teammates were reluctant to turn on their cameras during the Zoom sessions making her feel disconnected and unsatisfied and the team experienced few instances of success. These findings align with the work of Zee and Koomen ([<reflink idref="bib78" id="ref119">78</reflink>]), who found that unsuccessful encounters with students are likely to diminish "teachers' perceived capability to effectively instruct, motivate, manage, and emotionally support individual students" (p. 1021) and Gale et al. ([<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref120">18</reflink>]) who found that negative physiological experiences may be a particularly potent factor for undermining teaching self-efficacy. Thus, the absenteeism of Kayla's fifth grader, James, and the [initially] hesitant behavior of Jalisa and Nevaeh, especially in contrast to Lisa's talkative nature, negatively affected these PSTs' perceived teaching capabilities, while the energetic and motivated nature of Henry, Anthony, and Kaleb increased Madison and Kayla's teaching self-efficacy.</p> <p>This project enabled all three PSTs to have enactive mastery experiences as well as cognitive content mastery experiences. All three PSTs gained cognitive content mastery in engineering and coding during the training phase of the project when they were able to successfully build and code robots before interacting with the fifth graders, however, they had different enactive mastery experiences as they taught robotics. We would suggest this can be attributed to differences in the resources generated by the involvement of their engineering and fifth-grade partners throughout the project, and by the framing of the lesson outcomes.</p> <p>Kayla's partnership with Connor allotted her additional time and access to expertise to facilitate her content mastery. Connor took the lead in the sessions early on, allowing her an opportunity to learn from his example and the time to develop her own capabilities. When Kayla felt competent in her understanding, she was able to take the lead and successfully teach her fifth graders. Kayla's mastery teaching experience then originated from her experience teaching Kaleb, whom she instructed on her own in an extra session and for whom she rated her teaching success a 10 out of 10. She gained additional mastery experience from teaching her own children as they engaged with the robots. Overall, these experiences helped increase her perception of herself as a capable teacher of elementary engineering and coding.</p> <p>Madison and Lisa did not have the luxury of these additional resources. After being given information about the project, reflecting on her limited experience with engineering and coding, and noticing the limited involvement and lack of commitment from her engineering partner, Madison began spending a significant portion of her free time learning to code in order to be well prepared to lead her fifth graders in the project and respond to their questions. Madison's resulting content mastery helped her gain confidence in teaching, and her ultimate success teaching both of her fifth graders in content that was new for her created a mastery experience. This experience gave her confidence for teaching engineering and coding as well as confidence that she could teach other unfamiliar content in the future.</p> <p>Lisa's mastery experience was different. Because her fifth graders were not able to produce functional robots, and she felt disappointed in this outcome, it was unlikely her teaching served as an enactive mastery experience for teaching engineering and coding. However, Lisa was able to reframe her project goal and find success in her ability to create an engineering lesson plan and in supporting her fifth graders through a technically and socially challenging experience. Accordingly, Lisa did have a mastery experience, but her sense of mastery was centered on teaching more broadly, having the capability to plan an engineering lesson, and persevering through a challenging teaching task. We applaud Lisa's reframing and recognize her courage in tackling an incredibly challenging task without adequate support from her assigned partners. We also question whether Lisa's lesson was truly unsuccessful. An important engineering practice is to persevere in the face of failure (Cunningham & Kelly, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref121">12</reflink>]), and both she and her fifth-grader partners did just that. Perhaps Lisa's lesson outcome should have been viewed as a success in teaching students how to respond to failure in the context of an engineering design challenge (Johnson et al., [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref122">32</reflink>]; Lottero-Perdue & Parry, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref123">41</reflink>]). If Lisa's outcome had been framed this way, it would have served as a different source of self-efficacy information, likely one that contributed to, rather than detracted from, her sense of teaching self-efficacy for engineering and coding.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-15">Intrapersonal context</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187094072-16">Analysis of the teaching task</hd> <p>An important step in the formation of teaching self-efficacy is a teacher's analysis of the teaching task (Tschannen-Moran et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref124">71</reflink>]). Our teaching task was unusual in several ways. First, the project occurred in the context of a college class where grades were assigned. Lisa and Kayla initially focused on the completion of the robot as their primary teaching goal, thinking their grade would depend on it (the PSTs were not graded on the success of their robots or the success of their fifth grader's robots). Later, they shifted their focus to learning to work with the students and making sure the children had a positive experience with engineering.</p> <p>Second, the teaching task was unusual in that it was a co-teaching assignment, where the education and engineering students were instructed to plan and teach their robotics lesson collaboratively. This meant that the PSTs had to define their roles within their teams. All three PSTs started the project with an understanding that they would share the teaching task with their engineering partner(s). This assumption only became a reality for Kayla. Madison quickly redefined her role as managing and teaching all the content as she decided she was uncomfortable relying on Drake. On the other hand, Lisa continued to lament her engineering partners' lack of involvement and ultimately shifted her role to co-learner, learning robotics alongside the fifth graders.</p> <p>Finally, the task was unusual because the club occurred during the pandemic, and the project was adapted for a virtual environment. The adaptation introduced additional contextual factors outside the PSTs' control (e.g., parental support, Internet connections, available supplies, engineering student involvement). All three PSTs described the difficulty of teaching robotics over Zoom, especially engaging students shy to interact online. However, Lisa focused on the ways these contextual factors hampered her success. We believe this helped preserve her teaching self-efficacy. For example, when Lisa's students did not respond enthusiastically to her attempts to connect with them in the first session, she attributed it to the difficulty of the Zoom context and their shyness rather than viewing it as an outcome of her teaching abilities. This interpretation helped her see herself as a teacher who persevered in a challenging environment rather than a teacher who struggled with engaging her students. This is consistent with research that found instructors reframed negative teaching experiences to avoid negatively influencing their teaching self-efficacy (Morris & Usher, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref125">44</reflink>]) and relates to Bandura's (1994) assertion that initial failures can help individuals learn to persist through adversity and lead to an increase in self-efficacy. If Lisa perceived the task to be highly challenging, particularly due to contextual factors beyond her control, then falling short of success would not be perceived as a devastating experience and an indictment of her teaching capabilities but rather an expected outcome attributable to the circumstances.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-17">Assessment of personal teaching competence</hd> <p>It is important to consider not only <emph>if</emph> teachers feel successful, but <emph>why</emph> they feel successful (Morris et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref126">45</reflink>]). To assess their personal teaching competence, all three PSTs considered their fifth graders' engagement and performance as well as their own <emph>Performance</emph> (Guskey, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref127">23</reflink>]). Lisa and Madison both found success in the children's ability to persist through challenges and disappointments. Kayla was validated by Kaleb's engagement, specifically, his desire to meet with her for an extra session to finish his robot. All three considered not only the functionality of the children's robots but also how the children felt about their robots. This emotional outcome weighed heavy on the PSTs' minds as they all expressed concern about disappointing the children.</p> <p>The PSTs' self-assessments were also influenced by their resources and framing of interactions within the <emph>Social Context</emph>. Individuals set different goals for lessons based on their resources and framing. Madison set ambitious goals based on her habit of setting high expectations for herself and framed the lesson as a success because she was able to meet those goals. Conversely, Lisa initially framed the goal of the lesson as creating functional robots, however, after struggling to meet this teaching goal, she shifted her focus to teaching the fifth graders social skills and perseverance. Because Lisa was able to change the framing of the lesson's goals, she came away feeling satisfied with her <emph>Performance</emph>. Lisa and Kayla both compared their <emph>Performance</emph> to their peers' as resources to support their self-evaluation. Lisa was able to maintain her confidence by seeing that other teams also struggled with their robots. Meanwhile, Kayla's comparison of her skills to Conner's supported her to frame him as the leader of the project. However, her thinking had changed by the project's completion, and she believed she did not have to be an expert in engineering or coding to help her fifth graders learn.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-18">Teaching self-efficacy</hd> <p>All three PSTs noted increases in their general teaching self-efficacy in addition to increases in their self-efficacy for teaching engineering and coding. With some related experience in the Navy, Kayla focused on the project's impact on her efficacy for teaching engineering and coding at the elementary level. Lisa and Madison were completely new to teaching engineering and coding, but only Madison described herself as fully confident at the end of the project. Lisa described herself as being able to write and create lesson plans for engineering but as needing more research time and practice to feel confident integrating coding into her practice.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-19">Consequences of teacher efficacy</hd> <p>All three PSTs made connections between their personal lives and their desire to integrate engineering into their future instruction. Lisa saw a connection between engineering and the world around her. Kayla viewed the project as an opportunity to rekindle her prior interest in engineering from her time in the Navy. She also noted her own children's excitement about the robots as motivation to teach coding and learn more. Madison connected engineering to her expertise in creativity and stressed the importance of children creating physical artifacts. Helping PSTs make these connections may be an important next step after building their teaching self-efficacy. Research suggests a linkage between PSTs' knowledge of and attitudes about engineering and their intention to teach it (Cima et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref128">8</reflink>]; Lin & Williams, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref129">40</reflink>]).</p> <p>Lisa and Kayla both hesitated to say they were fully confident in integrating engineering, and particularly coding, into their classroom instruction but said they were ready to learn more. Kayla and Madison committed to teaching engineering to children as young as kindergarten. Kayla described plans to help her own children learn more about coding and acknowledged the benefits of early exposure to coding instruction. Madison said she felt confident in her ability to teach coding and indicated she would do so if she taught older elementary students. Madison expressed the highest level of teaching self-efficacy and expressed the strongest commitment to teaching engineering and coding. These findings are consistent with our prior research showing that the <emph>Ed+gineering</emph> project affected PSTs' intention to integrate engineering by influencing their self-efficacy for integrating engineering (Pazos et al. [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref130">54</reflink>]). When PSTs felt more confident in their abilities, they were more likely to say they planned to teach engineering in their future classroom. Also consistent with our prior research, there was a connection between PSTs' self-efficacy and their beliefs about the importance and appropriateness of teaching elementary students engineering and coding (Pazos et al. [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref131">54</reflink>]). Lisa, who reported the lowest levels of self-efficacy, thought coding would be too complicated for young children. In contrast, Madison and Kayla, who also plan to teach young children but reported higher levels of self-efficacy, expressed more openness to teaching coding.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-20">Cross-case analysis summary</hd> <p>Although all three PSTs gained teaching self-efficacy through participating in the project, they encountered different <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph> and processed this information differently. All three PSTs experienced mastery and felt pride when their fifth graders were engaged and persevered through technical challenges. These incidences of mastery and physiological arousal positively influenced their teaching self-efficacy. Additionally, all three PSTs benefited from the verbal persuasion of their instructor's encouragement and the initial training in robotics. Two PSTs, Madison and Kayla, had mastery experiences when their fifth-grade partners achieved functional robots. Kayla had a unique opportunity to benefit from an additional mastery experience by successfully teaching her own children about engineering and coding while working with her robotics kit at home. Kayla's <emph>Social Context</emph> was particularly rich in <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph> as she was able to gain confidence from interacting with her fifth-grade partners, her own children, and from interacting with her engineering partner, who was very invested in the project. She profited from the vicarious experience of watching him successfully teach the fifth graders and the positive physiological arousal brought on by his enthusiasm.</p> <p>In addition to seeing how <emph>Sources of Efficacy Information</emph> were generated within each PST's <emph>Social Context</emph>, we also saw how the <emph>Consequences of Teaching Self-efficacy</emph> shaped the PSTs' teaching intentions for their future classrooms. All three PSTs reported an intention to teach engineering. This is especially encouraging as all three plan to teach very young children. Madison and Kayla, who had at least one fifth-grader produce a successful robot and reported high levels of teaching self-efficacy, also expressed plans to integrate coding into their instruction and shared strong convictions for teaching engineering in their future classroom. These findings suggest that the robotics co-teaching experience was a successful context for promoting PST teaching self-efficacy development and intention to teach engineering and coding in elementary classrooms. Noting the potential of this teaching opportunity to generate teaching self-efficacy, the conclusion section builds on the findings from this cross-case analysis to describe how teacher educators can design teaching experiences that promote teaching self-efficacy development.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-21">Limitations</hd> <p>While our study adds to the literature on preparing elementary teachers to teach engineering and coding, it is not without limitations. It occurred within the context of an NSF-funded project where the instructors had prior experience with cross-disciplinary collaboration to support engineering education. Teacher educators implementing similar activities without similar experience might have dissimilar outcomes. The robotics project was adapted for online delivery due to the pandemic. The online modality and the broader context of the pandemic may have affected the motivation of all the project participants (faculty, education, engineering, and fifth-grade students) in ways that would not be expected in post-pandemic contexts. The three PSTs are, in many ways (e.g., gender, race, age, minimal experience with engineering and coding), representative of elementary PSTs in the United States; however, their experiences and characteristics are unique, and different PSTs may respond to a similar project differently. However, the instructors implemented a very similar project in previous semesters and experienced similar results (Kidd et al., [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref132">35</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref133">36</reflink>]). The project activities occurred in an afterschool club setting that was free from many of the constraints of K-6 classrooms and benefitted from one-on-one teaching opportunities. Accordingly, teacher educators may want to consider how PSTs' skills and confidence will translate to larger classroom settings.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-22">Conclusions and implications</hd> <p>Mastery experiences are the most potent sources of self-efficacy (Bandura, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref134">5</reflink>]; Gale et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref135">18</reflink>]). This makes sense as only through authentic teaching experience can PSTs gather evidence about their personal capabilities for teaching engineering (Tschannen-Moran et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref136">71</reflink>]). Furthermore, PSTs report positive gains in teaching self-efficacy following opportunities to teach teaching engineering and coding, even when such opportunities occur in informal settings and to small groups of students (Cima et al. [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref137">8</reflink>]; Kidd, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref138">36</reflink>]; Perkins-Coppola, [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref139">55</reflink>]; Rich et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref140">60</reflink>]). Accordingly, teacher educators should think creatively about the contexts available to provide opportunities for PSTs to teach engineering and coding.</p> <p>In creating teaching opportunities for PSTs, teacher educators must consider not just <emph>what</emph> gets taught, but <emph>to whom</emph> and <emph>with whom</emph>. Teaching children who were excited about the robotics content increased the participating PSTs' motivation for and investment in the project. To provide enjoyable and successful learning experiences, the PSTs dedicated time to mastering skills and preparing for sessions and voluntarily held additional Zoom sessions to help their fifth graders feel successful. In return, the children's successes evoked mastery experiences and generated positive physiological arousal, further reinforcing the PSTs' feelings of self-efficacy. Creating authentic opportunities for PSTs to teach children who are motivated and excited to learn about robotics can provide an ideal context to foster PST teaching self-efficacy for engineering and coding.</p> <p>Teaching in the context of a university course allowed the PSTs to have the support of their classmates, teaching assistants, and instructors, and enabled the PSTs to benefit from the collective efficacy of the class. The PSTs described the beneficial influence of their instructor's verbal persuasion in shaping their self-efficacy in the form of high expectations, supportive feedback, and structured training. Teaching alongside engineering students also created sources of self-efficacy information, including verbal persuasion, vicarious experience, and positive affective responses. PSTs' interactions with engineering partners were most beneficial when their partners were highly invested in the effort. In our study, only one of the three education/engineering student partnerships directly enhanced the PST's teaching self-efficacy. In the other two partnerships, PSTs gained teaching self-efficacy because they felt compelled to adopt dominant teaching roles to compensate for what they perceived as a lack of investment from their partners. Teacher educators who pair PSTs with engineering student partners for co-teaching experiences should consider how they frame team member roles and require PSTs to discuss their needs and expectations with partners at the inception of collaboration activities to promote effective relationships and equitable workloads. Such steps may promote investment and mutually beneficial relationships, which lead to PST satisfaction and facilitate the development of self-efficacy in teaching.</p> <p>Much is to be gained from the careful structuring of social learning and teaching environments to promote PSTs' beliefs about their teaching capabilities in the areas of engineering and coding. PSTs are unlikely to have much exposure to or teaching self-efficacy in these domains prior to entering their preparation programs (Banilower et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref141">3</reflink>]). We encourage teacher educators to consider how they can create social contexts within students' coursework and field experiences (e.g., authentic student audiences, supportive group members, teaching in informal settings, teaching motivated students, etc.) that will foster the development of PSTs' teaching self-efficacy for engineering and coding.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-23">Acknowledgements</hd> <p>This work was supported by a Grant from the National Science Foundation (DRK-12 #1908743). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-24">Author contributions</hd> <p>All eight authors contributed to the conception and design of the study. The first three authors led the data analysis and formulated the paper's structure. The fourth author provided critical feedback and background literature. The sixth author was the instructor for the engineering course used for the project intervention studied in the paper and contributed to the planning, development, and course adaptations needed for its implementation. He provided the technical expertise and guidance needed to support students' building of their robots during the lesson activities. All remaining authors are part of the larger project and authorship team and provided insight and feedback on the manuscript throughout its preparation. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-25">Funding</hd> <p>This work was supported by a Grant from the National Science Foundation (DRK-12 #1908743).</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-26">Data availability</hd> <p>Due to the nature of the research, which includes personally identifiable information about minors, supporting data is unavailable.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-27">Declarations</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187094072-28">Conflict of interest</hd> <p>On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.</p> <hd id="AN0187094072-29">Publisher's Note</hd> <p>Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.</p> <ref id="AN0187094072-30"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref65" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Baldwin KA. 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  Data: Teaching to Whom and with Whom: The Role of Context in Developing Preservice Teachers' Self-Efficacy for Teaching Engineering and Coding via Robotics
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22International+Journal+of+Technology+and+Design+Education%22"><i>International Journal of Technology and Design Education</i></searchLink>. 2025 35(4):1515-1542.
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  Data: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
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  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0957-7572<br />1573-1804
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Due to mandates for the inclusion of engineering and computer science standards for K-6 schools nationwide, there is a need to understand how teacher educators can help develop preservice teachers' (PSTs') teaching self-efficacy in these areas. To provide experience teaching and learning engineering and coding, PSTs in an instructional technology course were partnered with undergraduate engineering students in an electromechanical systems course to teach robotics lessons to fifth graders (10-11 year olds) over Zoom. A multi-case study approach explored teaching self-efficacy development for three preservice teachers during their robotics project experiences using multiple data sources, including surveys, reflections, interviews, and Zoom recordings, which were examined to identify how the project's social and intrapersonal context influenced the development of each PST's teaching self-efficacy for engineering and coding. The PSTs gained teaching self-efficacy through all four sources of teaching self-efficacy, although not all PSTs benefited from all four types, nor did they benefit equally. These sources also influenced the PSTs' intention to integrate engineering and coding into their future classrooms. This study demonstrates the potential of providing PSTs with the opportunity to teach robotics to children during their teacher preparation programs to support the development of their teaching self-efficacy for engineering and coding. When conducted in the context of a college course, such opportunities can be thoughtfully structured to leverage positive interactions with peers and elementary students and to take advantage of low-stakes environments, like afterschool clubs, offering PSTs settings rich in sources of self-efficacy information.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1485399
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1485399
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1007/s10798-024-09955-w
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 28
        StartPage: 1515
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Robotics
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Coding
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Computer Science Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Engineering Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Preservice Teachers
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Elementary School Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Grade 5
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: College School Cooperation
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Videoconferencing
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Student Attitudes
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Self Efficacy
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Teaching to Whom and with Whom: The Role of Context in Developing Preservice Teachers' Self-Efficacy for Teaching Engineering and Coding via Robotics
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Jennifer Kidd
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Kristie Gutierrez
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Min Jung Lee
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Danielle Rhemer
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Pilar Pazos
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Krishna Kaipa
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Stacie Ringleb
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Orlando Ayala
    IsPartOfRelationships:
      – BibEntity:
          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 09
              Type: published
              Y: 2025
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 0957-7572
            – Type: issn-electronic
              Value: 1573-1804
          Numbering:
            – Type: volume
              Value: 35
            – Type: issue
              Value: 4
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: International Journal of Technology and Design Education
              Type: main
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