Teaching Efficacy in the Classroom: Skill Based Training for Teachers’ Empowerment

This study aims to use an experimental research design to enhance teaching efficacy by social-emotional skills training in teachers. The statistical sample comprised of 68 elementary teachers (grades 4 and 5) with at least 10 years teaching experience and a bachelor’s degree who were randomly assigned into control (18 female, 16 male) and experimental (20 female, 14 male) groups. During ten weekly sessions of training the experimental groups learned a set of social-emotional skills (interpersonal—intrapersonal skills). Bar-On social emotional scales (adult version) and a researcher-made questionnaire for teaching efficacy were used to collect the required data. Independent t-tests, mix models of variance, multivariate analyses of variance, and regressions were used to compare the mean of social-emotional intelligence and its components and teaching efficacy differences between and within groups. The results showed that training had a significant effect on increasing social emotional skills and its components of the experimental group teachers. This research also showed a positive correlation between the enhancement of emotional skills and effective teaching. To be most effective, emotional skills training programs need to be applied in the classroom consistently across the curriculum, and teachers` involvement with these skills is needed to promote their social-emotional abilities.