Despite the critical importance of and increasing emphasis on teacher-parent partnerships, there is limited understanding of the practices of front line educators who interact with families on a daily basis. An important facet of professional practice is self-efficacy, but there is currently no empirical understanding of teacher self-efficacy for partnering with parents and how it affects collaborative processes. This gap in understanding is largely due to the absence of a psychometrically sound instrument that taps this construct. The Teacher Efficacy for Promoting Partnership (TEPP) measure has been developed in response to this significant need.

The study examines TEPP’s reliability (via coefficient alpha, coefficient omega) and validity (via confirmatory factor analysis, correlations) with a sample of Head Start teachers, who are often the first partners a parent will have in their child’s education.

The immediate goal of this study is to establish the psychometric properties of a measure that will provide an additional and important lens through which family-school partnerships can be analyzed. The long-term goal is to increase family-school partnerships in early childhood by strengthening teacher roles and efficacy for partnering.