How to Write the Literature Review for a Dissertation on Teacher Self-Efficacy, Step by Step (South Africa, 2026)

A literature review on teacher self-efficacy has six steps: scope the construct, search systematically, build a literature matrix, organise the studies by theme, synthesise instead of summarising, and close with the gap your questions answer. Each step below states the output you should have before moving on.

Step 1: Scope the construct before you search

Output: a one-paragraph definition and a list of neighbouring constructs you will exclude.

Teacher self-efficacy is a teacher’s belief in their own capability to bring about student engagement and learning. It builds on Albert Bandura’s self-efficacy theory, first set out in a 1977 article in Psychological Review (Bandura, 1977). The word “self-efficacy” is easily confused with confidence, resilience, motivation and job satisfaction, and a review that slides between them reads as unfocused. Decide now which of those you will treat as related constructs and which are out of scope.

Also decide the boundary of the review: pre-service or in-service teachers, phase (Foundation, Intermediate, Senior or FET), subject, and the setting (urban, township, rural, independent). That boundary decides which studies belong in the review and which are only background. If you have not yet pinned the key terms down, the site’s guide to writing the clarification of concepts section shows how.

Step 2: Search systematically and keep a log

Output: a search log with strings, databases, dates and the number of hits screened.

1. Start with a core string such as “teacher self-efficacy” combined with “South Africa”, then add variants (“teachers’ sense of efficacy”, “teacher efficacy beliefs”).
2. Search an education database such as ERIC, Google Scholar and your library’s multi-database search. Add the South African Journal of Education, which publishes open access, and other South African education journals.
3. Run the same string with your sub-topic (inclusive education, mathematics teaching, classroom management, pre-service teacher education).
4. Follow the reference lists of two or three recent articles backwards, and search for papers that cite the seminal works forwards.
5. Note which accredited journals the studies come from, because your faculty will care about the standing of what you cite.

The log matters because an examiner who asks “how did you find these studies?” wants a method, not a list of favourites. If your supervisor asks how many sources are enough, the guide on how many sources a master’s dissertation should cite sets out the question properly.

Step 3: Build a literature matrix

Output: one row per study, one column per feature, filled in from the full text.

A literature matrix is a table, in a spreadsheet or a document, with these columns: author and year, country and setting, participants and sample size, design, instrument, main finding and limitation. Fill it in from the article itself, not from a summary, because the details you need (sample, instrument, reliability) are exactly what abstracts omit.

Here is how three real entries look when they are built from published abstracts. Read the full article before you cite any of these in your own work.

Notice what the third row does not do: it makes no claim about results or sample, because those details come from the full text that you must open yourself. A matrix row you cannot fill from a source you have actually read should not be in your chapter.

Step 4: Organise the studies by theme, not by author

Output: a heading outline with the studies from your matrix allocated to each heading.

The commonest weakness in a first draft is a chapter that goes author by author (“Smith found… Jones found…”). A reviewer wants an argument, so group the matrix rows under themes. For teacher self-efficacy a workable outline is:

1. The theory: Bandura (1977) and the move from general self-efficacy to teacher efficacy.
2. Measurement: the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale and others. The Ohio State University instrument page for the Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy scale lists a 24-item long form and a 12-item short form and three subscales: efficacy in student engagement, in instructional practices and in classroom management (Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy, 2001). Link this section to your own reliability reporting; the guide to reporting Cronbach’s alpha shows how.
3. Correlates and antecedents: experience, stress, preparation, resilience, school context.
4. The South African context: pre-service and in-service studies, resourcing and policy.
5. The gap: what the studies above leave unexamined.

If your supervisor wants a general model for the chapter first, the site’s step-by-step literature review guide shows the overall structure of the chapter.

Step 5: Synthesise, don’t summarise

Output: for each theme, paragraphs that make a claim, give the evidence and add your comment.

A reliable paragraph formula is claim, evidence, comment. The claim is your own sentence about what the literature shows. The evidence is two or three studies cited in Harvard style. The comment says what they have in common, where they differ or what they cannot tell you. Worked illustration, using only facts from the abstracts above:

“Teacher self-efficacy has been measured and interpreted in South African initial teacher education in both quantitative and qualitative studies. Jonker, Graham and Ebersöhn (2024) tested self-efficacy and teacher efficacy scales with 1,193 final-year pre-service teachers and reported that the scales were reliable and valid in a South African setting. By contrast, Sheokarah (2025), working with twelve student teachers, showed through qualitative evidence that perceived unpreparedness during teaching practice can undermine self-efficacy and well-being. Together, these studies suggest that self-efficacy is measurable in this context and also sensitive to practice experiences, but neither tells us how in-service teachers in under-resourced schools experience it, which is the focus of the present study.”

Notice the pattern: one linking sentence, two precise citations with their samples, a contrast, a synthesis and a pointer to your own study. Every factual statement in it can be checked against the abstracts. That is the standard to hold your own paragraphs to.

Step 6: Close with the gap and link it to your questions

Output: a gap paragraph of five or six sentences that leads directly into your research questions.

The end of the review answers three questions in order: what do we know, what do we not know, and what will this study add? Write one sentence for each, and keep the second honest. A real gap rests on your matrix, for example “none of the South African studies in the matrix measures self-efficacy among in-service teachers in a particular phase or district”. Only claim that when the matrix really shows it.

The gap paragraph should lead straight into your research questions and, where relevant, your conceptual framework. If you have not yet drafted them, the guide to problem statement examples and the conceptual framework examples help you phrase them.

What if there are few South African studies on your exact topic?

This is common for a narrow topic, and it is not a problem if you handle it openly. State in the review that the South African evidence on your exact combination (for example a particular subject or phase) is thin, then widen the net in two directions. Move up a level to related South African studies, such as teacher resilience or teacher preparation, which Jonker, Graham and Ebersöhn (2024) and Sheokarah (2025) illustrate. Move sideways to international studies on the same construct, flagging that their school systems differ. Your own study then becomes the answer to the thinness, and the gap statement writes itself.

Keep the length of the review in proportion. Follow your faculty’s guidance on the chapter’s place and size, and let the themes, not a target page count, decide how much each strand receives.

A worked Harvard reference list for this review

The entries below follow a generic Harvard layout. Your faculty publishes its own variant, so check its guide before copying the punctuation.

• Bandura, A. (1977) Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), pp. 191–215.
• Jonker, C., Graham, M.A. and Ebersöhn, L. (2024) Measuring dimensions of teacher resilience in Africa: self-efficacy and teacher efficacy. South African Journal of Education, 44(3), pp. 1–18.
• Klassen, R.M. and Chiu, M.M. (2010) Effects on teachers’ self-efficacy and job satisfaction: teacher gender, years of experience, and job stress. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(3), pp. 741–756.
• Sheokarah, J. (2025) Disorienting dilemmas, self-efficacy and well-being: exploring student teachers’ perceptions of unpreparedness to teach English. Journal of Student Affairs in Africa, 13(2).
• Tschannen-Moran, M. and Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2001) Teacher efficacy: capturing an elusive construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(7), pp. 783–805.

Common mistakes in a teacher self-efficacy review

• Mixing constructs: treating confidence, resilience and self-efficacy as interchangeable.
• Author-by-author summaries with no themes and no comparison.
• No South African evidence, so the examiner cannot see why your study is needed here.
• Citing an instrument you did not read, with the wrong number of items or subscales.
• An invented gap that the matrix does not support.

Organise your literature review with Tesify

Once your matrix is filled in, the work is organising each theme and keeping the citations consistent. 9,000+ students have written 15,000+ chapters with Tesify, which helps you structure and organise your dissertation, and the text stays 100% written by you. Organise your literature review with Tesify.

Frequently asked questions

How many studies should a teacher self-efficacy literature review cite?

There is no fixed number. Cite enough to cover theory, measurement, correlates and the South African context, and follow your faculty guide and supervisor on length.

Do I have to use Bandura’s theory?

Teacher self-efficacy is built on Bandura’s (1977) self-efficacy theory, so you should present it, even if your study is guided by a different framework.

Which instrument measures teacher self-efficacy?

The Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale from Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2001) is widely used. It has a 24-item long form and a 12-item short form with three subscales.

Can I include studies from other countries?

Yes, especially for theory and measurement, but you must show what is known in South African schools and where the evidence thins out.

What is the difference between a literature review and an annotated bibliography?

A review synthesises studies under themes to build an argument. An annotated bibliography summarises one source at a time.

How old can my sources be?

Seminal works such as Bandura (1977) stay in. For empirical findings, favour recent studies and say why when you rely on older ones.

Where do I find South African studies on teacher self-efficacy?

Search the South African Journal of Education and other South African education journals, then use database searches in ERIC and Google Scholar with your search string.