Introduction

Self efficacy is an individual's perceived capabilities to attain designated types of performances and to achieve specific results (Pajares, 1996; Telia & Ayeni, 2006). Typically, educator self efficacy is a set of individual efficacy beliefs that refer to the specific domain of the educator's professional behaviour. Educator self efficacy refers to a teacher's expectation that he or she will be able to bring about student learning. Educator self efficacy includes willingness to try out new teaching ideas (Ross, 1992), attend more closely to low ability student needs, modify student's ability perceptions (Ross, 1998) even among those students who may be very difficult or unmotivated. Educator's self efficacy involves job accomplishment, skill development on the job, social interaction with students, parents including colleagues and coping with stress; all these are of vital importance for successful teaching (Schwarzer, Schmitz and Daytner, 1999).

Collective self efficacy represents a group's shared belief in its cojoint capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to provide given levels of attainment (Bandura, 1997a). According to Schwarzer, Schmitz and Daytner (1999) collective self efficacy deals with a group's beliefs in its competence for successful action, similar to any individual's belief in his or her competence. The group will be more convince of their ability to materialize innovative projects or to cope with budget, in addition they will not easily be discouraged by setbacks.

Collective educators' self efficacy is a specific belief in collective capacity which represents the perceptions of educators in a school or university and their efforts as a whole which may have a positive effect on students (Goddard, Hoy 8c Hoy, 2000). Collective educators' self efficacy differs from individual educator's self-efficacy in that collective educators' self efficacy refers to expectations of the effectiveness of all the academic staff in the university, whereas educator's self efficacy refers to expectations about individual's teaching ability.

Bandura's social cognitive theory holds that the individual beliefs are the foundation of action therefore self efficacy which is the belief in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action is required to produce given attainments (Bandura, 1997b). Social cognitive theory suggests that people can modify or even create their environment especially as people are self-aware and purposefully engaged in seeking about their environment and to alter it for attainment of goals. Individuals who feel that they will be successful on a given task are more likely to be so because they adopt challenging goals, try harder to achieve them, persist despite setbacks, and develop coping mechanisms for managing their emotional states.

Another important belief system proposed by social cognitive theory concerns people's views about the extent to which their environment is controllable (Bandura, 1993). To exercise control concerns firstly, the level and strength of self efficacy to produce changes by perseverant effort and creative use of capabilities and resources. Secondly, the modifiability of the environment to exercise self efficacy over constraints and opportunities provided by the environment produce little change even in environments that provide many potential opportunities. However in most environments, including universities, those who have a firm belief in their self efficacy, through ingenuity and perseverance, figure out ways of exercising some control, even in environments containing limited opportunities and many constraints.

Self efficacy operates as an important contributor to academic development, for instance individual educator's belief in his/her self efficacy to motivate and promote learning may affect the types of learning environments created and the level of academic progress the students achieve. Educators' beliefs in their collective self efficacy contribute significantly to their university's level of academic achievement. There is a marked difference between just possessing knowledge and skills as an educator and combining that skill with being able to use them well under taxing conditions. Personal accomplishments may require not only skills but beliefs of self efficacy to use them well. The capacities to survive, to demonstrate resilience and resistance and to demonstrate innovativeness are governed primarily by educators' beliefs about their capability in their self efficacy as educators (Gibbs, 2002).

The level of academic progress achieved by a university largely reflects the summed contributions of teaching staff in their individual classrooms and all academic staff in their various departments (Bandura, 1993). Academic staff consists of the teaching staff and professional librarians of universities and basically their duties are interwoven. Additionally, teachers (Schwarzer, Schmitz and Daytner, 1999) and professional librarians are educators (Lawal, 2002).

The university involves organizational interdependence that requires and contributes to educators' sense of collective self efficacy. The teaching staff is expected to contribute to the realization of the goals of the university as regards teaching, research and community service (Adebayo, 2010). Professional librarians do research and render service to produce the necessary data or information and materials for effective teaching and research work in the university (Ejike 8c Iguilo, 1981) especially with the concept of the virtual library (Lawal, 2000). The Committee of University librarians of Nigerian Universities (CULNU) established academic status for librarians in the universities in line with Standing Conference of African University Libraries, Western Area. (SCAULWA), International Federation of Library Associations and Institution (IFLA) coordinated by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to promote professional practice and to connect communities to educate and train people (IFLA/ UNESCO, 2004). Librarians therefore can act as educators of knowledge and information science.

Teaching staff in general also have ethical obligations with formal policies regulating their conduct. National University Commission (NUC) (2006) in line with its major mandate of ensuring orderly development of Nigerian university education is vested with the responsibility that regulates academic programmes as well as supplies information on university education to government departments, institutions, researchers and general public. Expert academics across the Nigerian universities are to contribute immensely to its success as resource persons, promote intra and inter institutional research collaboration and sensitise the general public about research in the universities.

The American Psychological Association (APA) represents a discipline whose members including the teaching psychologist function in diverse work settings. The ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct by APA (2010) states that psychologists in general provide services, teach, and conduct research with populations in areas only within the boundaries of their competence, based on their education, training, supervised experience, consultation, study, or professional experience. Specifically, psychologists responsible for education and training programs take reasonable steps to ensure that the programs are designed to provide the appropriate knowledge and proper experiences to ensure that there is a current and accurate description of the program content. However, when indicated and professionally appropriate, psychologists cooperate with other professionals in order to serve their clients effectively and appropriately. Invariably, in relation to the university there are psychology courses such as 'computer application to psychology' whose scope exceed the discipline of psychology and require the input of educators and professionals in other disciplines such as virtual library, information science and computer.

Previous research suggested that teachers who have high self efficacy, take more roles with the curriculum (Guskey, 1988); use non teaching approaches (Gidson 8c Dembo 1984); tend to persist in failure situations (Gibson 8c Dembo, 1984); get better gains in student's achievement (Brookover, Beady, Flood, Schweitzer 8c Wisenbaker, 1979) and have motivated students (Midaely, Feldlarfer, 8c Eccles, 1989). Other researches suggested that both the individual self efficacy and collective self efficacy influence organizational outcomes such as goal attainment. Schools with high collective teacher efficacy have higher student achievement than schools with lower levels of collective teacher efficacy, independent of the effects of student socio-economic states (Goddard, 2001; Goddard, Hoy, & Logerfo, 2003; Ross, Hogaboam-Gray 8c Gray, 2003).

Villanuevai and Sanchez (2007) found that there was relationship of leader's self efficacy with collective self efficacy on group performance. Lev 8c Koslowsky (2009) indicated that collective self efficacy was positively associated with self efficacy and also management staff members shared higher levels of self efficacy. Viel - Puma, Houchins, Jolivette and Benson, (2010) examined the relationship between reported levels of teacher self efficacy and collective efficacy in special education. It was found that collective self efficacy directly affected teacher self efficacy. There was no significant differences found across sub-groups of teachers categorized by teaching level (elementary, middle and high) teaching setting (self contained, resource, or conclusion) and certification type (highly qualified, not highly qualified or emergency) .

Individual educator self-efficacy and collective teacher selfefficacy are conceptually distinct (Goddard 8c Goddard 2001). Self efficacy proved to be a consistent predictor of varying human behavior such as creativity, (Telia 8c Ayeni, 2006); escalation of commitment, (Akinbobola, 2008) and job involvement (Yang, Kao 8c Huang, 2006). Evidence that collective efficacy contributes to organizational effectiveness has been reported in a variety of settings including sports team (Watson, Chemers and Preiser, 2001); military groups (J ex 8c Bliese, 1999) university work teams (Riggs 8c Knight, 1994) and bank employees (Walumbwa, Wang 8c Lawler, 2003). There have been studies of self efficacy done separately on librarians (e.g. Telia & Ayeni, 2006) and teachers (e.g. Yang, Kao 8c Huang, 2006). However, few research has been conducted on teachers self efficacy (Bradon 8c Smith, 2009). Moreover, fewer study have been done in the area of educator's self efficacy and collective educators' self efficacy especially among teaching staff and professional librarians of university referred to as academic staff of universities.

Not much study has been done on aspect of ethical cooperative teaching among psychologist and other professionals. There is a dearth of examination of the ethical cooperative teaching of university faculties across all disciplines. The present study is conducted to collect data on cooperation, competence, collaborative behaviours of psychologists functioning as educators in conjunction with other academic staff comprising of teaching staff and professional librarians. The purpose of the present study therefore is to find the predictability of educator's self efficacy on collective educators' self efficacy.

To achieve this purpose, the following hypotheses were tested:

1. Educator's self efficacy will be positively correlated to collective educators' self efficacy among academic staff.

2. Teaching staff will engage in collective educators' self efficacy more than professional librarians.

3. Male academic staff will engage in collective educators' self efficacy more than female academic staff.

4. Sex, age and educator's self efficacy will independently and jointly predict collective educators' self efficacy among academic staff.

Method

This research constitutes an empirical study which utilizes a crosssectional approach which specifically adopted expost design. The variables were not under the direct manipulation of the researcher. A cross-sectional study is a study where data is gathered just once (Sekaran, 2003).

Participants

There were 99 participants made up of 50 male (50.5%) and 49 female (49.5%) academic staff of a University. The 99 academic staff comprised teaching staff, teaching psychologist and professional librarians. The participants' age ranged from 25 to 65 with mean age 37.78 and standard deviation of 7.79

Instruments

A battery of questionnaires with three sections was used in this study. The first section was made up of questions on demographic variables such as designation and sex.

The second section is the 10 item scale teacher self-efficacy scale developed by Schwarzer, Schmitz and Daytner (1999). Response format ranges from (1) indicating not at all true to (4) indicating exactly true. The authors reported Cronbach's alpha in three samples which was found to be reliability between .76 and .82. Test-retest resulted in .67 and .76 for 2 samples. The current study reported cronchbach alpha reliability of 0.80

The third section is the collective teacher self-efficacy scale was constructed by Schwarzer, Schmitz and Daytner (1999) is a twelve item scale. Response format ranges from (1) indicating not at all true to (4) indicating exactly true. The authors reported Cronbach's alpha for two samples of German teachers are 0.91 and 0.92 respectively and test - retest reliability resulted in 0.77 The current study reported cronbach alpha reliability of 0.96

Procedure

Questionnaires were randomly distributed to participants by trained research assistants over one month period. Participants were assured of their confidentiality and consent was sought from each.

Results

Hypothesis 1 stated that educator's self efficacy will be positively correlated to collective educators' self efficacy among academic staff. The result in Table 1 of the Pearson moment correlation revealed that educator's self efficacy had significant positive relationship with collective educators' self efficacy r- .41, df = 98, P< .01 The result confirmed the stated hypothesis.

Hypothesis 2 stated that teaching staff will engage in collective educators' self efficacy more than professional librarians. Result in Table 2 shows there is no significant difference between teaching staff and librarians on collective educators' self efficacy t = - .76, df = 97, Pns. The hypothesis is not confirmed.

Hypothesis 3 stated that male academic staff will engage in collective educators' self efficacy more than female academic staff. Result in Table 3 showed that male academic staff significantly scored higher on collective educators' self efficacy than female academic staff t = -2.87; df = 07; P < .01 Further comparison of their mean score showed that male academic staff have lower mean score (33.90) compared to female academic staff (38.43). The result did not confirm the stated hypothesis.

Hypothesis 4 stated that sex, age and educator's self efficacy will predict collective educators' self efficacy among academic staff. Result in Table 4 showed that there is a joint influence of sex, age and educator's self efficacy on collective educators' self efficacy F (3, 97) = 4.07 P < .01 Sex, age and educator's self efficacy jointly explained 22% variance in collective educators' self efficacy among academic staff. However, only educator's self efficacy have independent influence on collective educators' self efficacy β = .45; P < .01

Discussion

The result of this study showed that educator's self efficacy was positively correlated to collective educators' self efficacy among academic staff showed that the higher the individual staffs self efficacy the higher the staff collective self efficacy in the group. This finding is supported by Villanuevai and Sanchez (2007) who posited that there was relationship of leader's self efficacy with collective self efficacy on group performance. Similarly, Lev & Koslowsky (2009) indicated that collective self efficacy was positively associated with self efficacy.

The result of this study the independent t - test analysis revealed that there is no significant difference in the designation of academic staff either teaching staff or professional librarian on their collective educators' self efficacy. Viel - Puma, Houchins, Jolivette and Benson, (2010) supported the finding of this study from their research which showed there was no significant differences found across sub-groups of teachers categorized by teaching level, teaching setting, and certification type on collective self efficacy. The finding that designation does not distinguish academic staff on collective educators' self efficacy also means that both categories of academic staff will benefit from special psychological and personality programmes that will teach them appropriate skills for collective educators' self efficacy. Collaboration in ethical cooperative teaching will be effective since no discrimination exist between the two categories of academic staff.

The finding further indicated that male academic staff scored lower on collective educators' self efficacy than female academic staff in this study. This result is supported by the findings of Adetoro, Simisaye and Oyefuga (2010) that significant difference exist in perceived self efficacy based on gender. Result in the study also indicated that there is significant joint influence of sex, age and educator's self efficacy on collective educators' self efficacy of academic staff of the university. Specifically, only educator's self efficacy independently predicted collective educators' self efficacy. This finding is supported by Viel - Puma, Houchins, Jolivette and Benson, (2010) who posited that collective self efficacy directly affected teacher self efficacy. The result is also supported by Bandura, (1997b) theory that those high in educator's self efficacy and teaching ability will be high in collective educators' self efficacy and effectiveness of all teaching staff and attainment of goals.

It has been observed that the results obtained from this study are in agreement with previous research findings. Educator's self efficacy significantly has predictive effect on collective educators' self efficacy. It can therefore be inferred that the higher the self efficacy of an academic staff, the higher the collective self efficacy he/she will present in the group during collaborative work due to positive relationship that exist between educator's self efficacy and collective educators' self efficacy. The study further confirmed that lecturing is an intellectual and tasking assignment which may be shared by educators. The study is an evidence of ethical cooperative teaching among psychologist, university faculties across all disciplines and other professionals.

Implications and Recommendations

Universalizing ethical code of practice among academic staff, that is professional librarians and teaching staff of the university in line with APA. The Nigeria University Commission (NUC), management of universities and academic staff should gain a greater appreciation of the ethical practice of psychology in universities and organizations. NUC should continue to count on cooperation, collaboration and understanding of the Nigerian university academic community. Professional librarians and teaching staff should develop a group forum for interaction and exchange of ideas. However further studies should be encouraged to cover other areas and variables not in the scope of the present one.

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Author affiliation:

1OIuSoIa I. Akinbobola & 2Akinniyi A. Adeleke

Redeemer's University

1Department of Behavioural Studies

2Library

Redemption City, Ogun State

Nigeria