A new analysis of Shanghai teachers has revealed how the atmosphere inside a school may shape what happens in classrooms—and how educators decide what kind of professional development they still need. Using data from the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey, researchers examined the connections among school climate, teachers’ self-efficacy, instructional practice, and perceived professional-development needs. Their findings offer a detailed statistical portrait of teaching as a system in which workplace relationships, professional confidence, classroom behavior, and continuing education are closely intertwined. Rather than treating professional development as an isolated policy tool, the study suggests that teachers’ learning needs are embedded in the institutional environments where they work every day.
The research focuses on Shanghai, one of the world’s most closely watched education systems. The city is widely associated with strong student performance, intensive academic expectations, and a highly organized teaching profession, but its results also provide a window into the pressures and supports experienced by educators. TALIS 2018 collected information directly from teachers and school leaders about working conditions, instructional beliefs, classroom practices, leadership, collaboration, and professional learning. Because the survey captures multiple dimensions of teachers’ professional lives at the same time, it allows researchers to move beyond simple correlations and test a more complex explanation of how school conditions may be connected to teaching.
At the center of the study is structural equation modeling, a statistical technique designed to investigate relationships among several variables simultaneously. Unlike a basic comparison between two measures, structural equation analysis can estimate direct and indirect pathways in a proposed model. In this case, the researchers examined whether school climate was associated with teachers’ self-efficacy, whether self-efficacy was linked to instructional practice, and how these factors related to educators’ perceived needs for professional development. The method also makes it possible to treat broad concepts such as “school climate” and “self-efficacy” as latent constructs—underlying characteristics inferred from groups of survey responses rather than measured by a single question.
School climate refers to the social and organizational character of a school. It can include collegial relationships, cooperation among teachers, the quality of communication, leadership support, shared expectations, and the extent to which educators feel respected and involved. A constructive climate does not merely make a workplace more pleasant. It may provide teachers with opportunities to exchange ideas, observe effective practices, receive feedback, and experiment with new instructional approaches without feeling professionally isolated. In a demanding education system, these conditions can influence whether teachers see challenges as manageable problems, threats to their competence, or opportunities for improvement.
Teachers’ self-efficacy describes their belief that they can successfully perform the core tasks of teaching, including engaging students, managing classrooms, supporting diverse learners, and helping students achieve. It is not the same as actual effectiveness, and it should not be interpreted as a guarantee of higher student performance. However, self-efficacy is an important motivational and professional factor. Teachers who feel capable may be more willing to adapt lessons, persist when students struggle, and seek solutions to instructional problems. The Shanghai analysis places this sense of capability between the school environment and classroom practice, highlighting the possibility that institutional support may influence teaching partly by strengthening teachers’ confidence in their own professional agency.
Instructional practice is the part of the model closest to students’ everyday classroom experience. TALIS asks teachers about approaches such as explaining concepts, managing learning activities, adapting instruction, encouraging higher-order thinking, and supporting student engagement. These measures do not provide a complete observation of classroom behavior, because they are based on self-reports, but they offer valuable information about the practices teachers say they use. By connecting instructional practice with school climate and self-efficacy, the researchers examine whether the broader professional environment is reflected in the ways educators describe their teaching.
The study also considers teachers’ perceived needs in professional development, an especially important issue at a time when schools are investing heavily in workshops, online courses, mentoring, and collaborative learning. Professional-development needs can involve subject knowledge, pedagogy, classroom management, assessment, digital technologies, or teaching students with different learning requirements. A high reported need does not necessarily mean that a teacher is unprepared. It may indicate reflective professionalism: educators who are actively examining their work may recognize more areas in which they want to grow. Conversely, low demand for training could reflect confidence, limited access, lack of time, or a belief that available programs are not relevant.
The structural model is valuable because it treats these interpretations as connected rather than competing. A school climate that encourages collaboration may help teachers develop stronger professional confidence. Greater self-efficacy may then be associated with more purposeful or varied instructional practices. At the same time, teachers who are deeply engaged with their practice may identify more specific professional-development needs. The analysis therefore presents professional learning not as a remedy applied after teaching problems appear, but as part of a feedback system involving workplace culture, teacher beliefs, classroom decisions, and the perceived usefulness of further training. Importantly, the survey design can reveal statistically consistent associations and pathways in the model, but it cannot prove that one factor directly causes another.
That distinction matters for interpreting the findings. Structural equation modeling can test whether the observed data fit a theoretical network of relationships, but it does not transform cross-sectional survey responses into experimental evidence. The Shanghai results cannot establish that changing school climate alone will automatically raise self-efficacy or improve instruction. Teachers may influence school climate as much as climate influences them, and unmeasured factors—including leadership quality, workload, school resources, student composition, and national policy expectations—may affect several variables at once. The study is therefore best understood as evidence of an interconnected professional ecology, not as a simple recipe for educational reform.
The broader message is already resonating beyond Shanghai: professional development works best when it is connected to the daily realities of teachers’ workplaces. Programs designed without attention to school relationships, leadership, time constraints, and teachers’ existing confidence may have limited impact, even when their content is technically strong. The analysis suggests that education systems should consider climate-building and professional learning together, creating conditions in which teachers can collaborate, receive meaningful feedback, and translate new ideas into classroom practice. In an era when schools are expected to respond simultaneously to technological change, diverse learner needs, and rising performance demands, the study offers a timely reminder that better teaching is not produced by training sessions alone. It grows through the interaction of capable professionals and supportive institutions.
Subject of Research: Relationships among school climate, teachers’ self-efficacy, instructional practice, and perceived professional-development needs in Shanghai, based on TALIS 2018 data.
Article Title: Association between school climate, teachers’ self-efficacy, instructional practice, and perceived needs in professional development: a structural equation analysis using Shanghai TALIS 2018 data
Article References: Springer Nature, 2025.
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1186/s40536-025-00268-5
Keywords: school climate; teacher self-efficacy; instructional practice; professional development; structural equation modeling; TALIS 2018; Shanghai education.
