Eureka! Institutional Repository

The present study aimed at exploring: (a) the degree of secondary school teachers' collaboration with colleagues in the school context, (b) the different forms of their collaboration, and (c) the factors that, according to teachers' views, can facilitate or hinder their collaboration attempts. An additional aim was to investigate the predictive value of different forms of collaboration for teachers' self-efficacy beliefs as regards their ability to affect their students' academic progress. One hundred and forty three Greek secondary school teachers of both genders from different academic disciplines from secondary schools located mainly in the city of Thessaloniki were participated in the study. They were asked to report via self-report questionnaires the degree and the form of their collaboration with colleagues in their schools, the factors that, according to their views, can facilitate or hinder their collaboration attempts and their self-efficacy beliefs. According to the results, teachers reported a very high degree of collaboration with colleagues. This collaboration takes mainly the form of informal exchanging of ideas about teaching, motivating students', and evaluating students' progress as well as school problems. They reported at a significantly lower degree participation in collaborative groups aiming at personal professional development through the application of innovative teaching approaches in class. Principal support as well as close, friendly relations and a "culture" of collaboration in school were highly reported as facilitators of their participation in collaborative activities. As regards the factors that hinder their collaboration, even though they acknowledged the lack of time and the lack of trust in the effectiveness of collaboration as significant obstacles, the factor that affected negatively their reports for collaboration was that of lack of skills or training in designing and implementing collaborative programs or actions. Further, in accordance with previous international empirical evidence, the degree of reported collaboration was found to affect significantly teachers' self-efficacy beliefs for their ability to substantially influence their students' academic accomplishments. The educational implications of the present results are discussed.