Strengthening Teacher's Teaching Self-Efficacy And Creative Teaching For Student Literacy Development

Abstract

The crisis of literacy in elementary education in Indonesia calls for an urgent and organized response from all parties. Central Lombok Regency, West Nusa Tenggara, with all its opportunities and challenges, as the seat of the Mandalika Special Economic Zone, has a literacy rate among elementary school students that is still below expectations. While various technical training programs have been carried out, the critical aspect that has always been weak is the strengthening of teachers' psychological aspects, including teaching self-efficacy and creative teaching. This pair of factors has become the central issue in this community service activity. This activity was conducted in the form of a participatory training event with four stages: strengthening concepts of teaching self-efficacy, developing creative teaching for literacy, integrating the two concepts, and simulations of teaching practice in a week (May 2026) involving 50 teachers from various sub-districts in Central Lombok. An independent pretest-posttest design was used with knowledge tests as pretests and post-tests, observation sheets for teaching practice, and evaluation questionnaires for the program. Descriptive statistical analysis and paired sample t-tests were used to analyze the data. The analysis results showed that the participants' knowledge increased significantly from the pretest to the post-test. Teachers were able to understand and apply concepts that could be used to create interesting and interactive literacy media, such as ice-breaking activities and innovative methods and materials, including local wisdom-based methods. The discussion also shows that strengthening teaching self-efficacy is essential to increase teachers' self-confidence and psychological resilience, while creative teaching is necessary to develop students' literacy interests and skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving abilities. The community service activity also demonstrates relevance to the needs of Central Lombok Regency, which needs to develop a competent and creative workforce in anticipation of the economic and social changes that will accompany the establishment of the Mandalika SEZ. This activity implies the need to strengthen the competence and character of elementary school teachers in an integrated and systemic way and to provide post-training support through mentoring and evaluation activities so that the sustainability of the results can be achieved. It can be concluded that strengthening teachers' teaching self-efficacy and creative teaching is an effective and relevant activity to be carried out in Central Lombok Regency and has the potential to be replicated elsewhere in Indonesia. Strengthening teaching self-efficacy and creative teaching is an investment in the future of education that prioritizes quality teachers who are confident, creative, and passionate about developing the literacy of the nation's youth