Paper long abstract:

Today, universities compete directly with one another to improve their overall "quality" and attempt to improve their position as measured against sector standards. The benchmarking of confidence among university faculty in relation to the skills associated with research and teaching is, however, an underdeveloped and somewhat sensitive field. Not only is there a dearth of research on the topic of faculty self-efficacy, but it also seems that no genuine attempt has been made to investigate the relationship between self-efficacy and job satisfaction of university faculty. We explored the research and teaching self-efficacy and job satisfaction of 528 university faculty (46% female) from Azerbaijan and Turkey using a mixed methods approach. Results from the quantitative Study 1 showed that teaching self-efficacy was higher than research self-efficacy, and that levels of research self-efficacy varied according to career stage and qualifications, but not gender. Job satisfaction was highest for faculty members with Master's degrees. Teaching self-efficacy was the strongest predictor of job satisfaction. The results from qualitative Study 2 showed that contextual factors such as university climate and peer collegiality influenced self-efficacy and job satisfaction. Implications of the findings for university administrators and policy-makers were presented.