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Twenty-one statements, six response options: that was all the questionnaire needed. Roger D. Goddard, Wayne K. Hoy and Anita Woolfolk Hoy presented it in the American Educational Research Journal in 2000. It does not ask teachers how much they believe in themselves. It asks how much they believe in their faculty as a whole. The answers turned out to say a surprising amount about what the students at these schools learned. An example of the Team Principle of Confidence.
Measuring a Faculty
Situation
The psychologist Albert Bandura coined the term collective efficacy: a group’s shared belief that together it can do what a given result requires. Roger D. Goddard, Wayne K. Hoy and Anita Woolfolk Hoy applied the concept to schools. They studied urban elementary schools in a large school district in the American Midwest – according to a secondary source, 452 teachers at 47 schools with just over 7,000 students. Schools whose faculties had more confidence in themselves achieved better results in reading and mathematics. In 2004, Megan Tschannen-Moran and Marilyn Barr found a similar pattern at 66 middle schools: depending on the subject, collective efficacy explained 14 to 28% of the differences in achievement between schools.
Connection to the team principle
The Team Principle of Confidence refers to exactly this quality: not good cheer in the teachers’ lounge, but the shared, task-specific belief “We can make a difference with our students.” The studies show that this belief can be measured and that it is linked to results. A faculty that believes in itself sets higher goals, works harder and gives up on difficult students later.
The Number That Grew Too Big
Situation
In her 2011 dissertation, Rachel Jean Eells meta-analyzed 26 studies and found a strong correlation. The education researcher John Hattie converted this value into an effect size and put collective teacher efficacy at the top of his ranking of influences on student achievement. Later, the figure was revised downward in the materials accompanying his own work.
Connection to the team principle
The number should be read with caution. It is a converted correlation, not the measured effect of an intervention. The studies behind it are snapshots: they show that confidence and performance go together, not which leads to which. A faculty whose students have done well for years has good reason to be more confident. The core statement “A team achieves what it believes it can achieve” is therefore not supported as a rule without exceptions. Broader meta-analyses covering all kinds of teams find a moderate relationship. Confidence raises the odds of success. It is no substitute for ability or resources.
Where Confidence Comes From
Situation
Albert Bandura names four sources of efficacy: mastery experience (one’s own successes), vicarious experience (the successes of comparable others), verbal persuasion (encouragement) and emotional state. In 2018, Jenni Donohoo, John Hattie and Rachel Eells stressed which of these counts most for faculties: evidence of their own impact on students’ learning outcomes. Positive thinking, they argued, is not enough.
Connection to the team principle
This is the second half of the principle: success feeds confidence. For school leaders, it implies a clear task. A faculty does not gain confidence through appeals, but when its members see together that their teaching has made a difference. If you want to build confidence, you have to make impact visible.
What This Means for Disadvantaged Students
Situation
In 2017, Roger D. Goddard, Linda Skrla and Serena Salloum studied 47 schools in a Texas district with 13,472 students and 2,041 teachers, looking at mathematics in grades 4 and 5. In schools with high collective efficacy, the achievement gap for Black students was half the size it was in schools with average efficacy. The teachers surveyed named school leadership as the decisive factor in whether a faculty develops this shared confidence.
Connection to the team principle
The study suggests where shared confidence matters most: where it would be tempting to blame results on circumstances. And it shows that this confidence is not a private matter for each individual. It depends on leadership.
When Confidence Does Harm
Situation
In 2010, Jack A. Goncalo, Evan Polman and Christina Maslach followed project groups over time in two longitudinal studies. Groups that were highly confident from the start had less process conflict – they argued less about how to approach their work. Yet that very debate would have been useful in the early phase. Later performance could suffer as a result.
Connection to the team principle
Confidence can come too soon. A team that is very sure of itself scrutinizes its plan less thoroughly. So the principle does not call for the highest possible confidence at every moment. It calls for confidence that rests on evidence and can withstand dissent.
Key takeaways
Key Lessons
- Don’t just ask your team members how confident each of them is individually; ask how confident you are as a team. The answers can be far apart.
- Show your team regularly what its work has achieved – through results, not praise. That is the strongest source of confidence.
- Let your team learn from comparable teams that have succeeded. “They’re just like us” is more persuasive than any role model from on high.
- Protect the early phase of a project from too much agreement. At that stage, arguing about the approach is a good sign.
- Accept this as part of your job as a leader. Whether your team believes in itself also depends on you.
Summary
Research on school faculties shows that what a faculty believes it can achieve together is linked to its students’ results. The most important source of this confidence is evidence of its own impact, and school leaders have a strong influence on it. The findings support the Team Principle of Confidence, but not as a universal claim: the relationships are correlational, a much-cited figure is disputed, and confidence that comes too early can even harm a team.