Moral Reasoning,Ethical Awareness and Professional Self-Efficacy Among Teachers: A Systematic Review of Research from 2010 to 2024

Teaching is fundamentally a moral profession in which ethical judgement and professional competence intersect to shape educational practice and student outcomes. Despite growing scholarship on teacher ethics and self-efficacy, research examining the interrelationship among moral reasoning, ethical awareness, and professional self-efficacy remains conceptually fragmented. Addressing this gap, the present systematic review synthesises empirical and theoretical evidence published between 2010 and 2024 to examine how these constructs interact within the teaching profession. Following the PRISMA 2020 framework, peer-reviewed studies were retrieved from four major databases (ERIC, Scopus, PsycINFO, and JSTOR), resulting in the inclusion of 52 studies that met predefined eligibility criteria. Methodological quality was appraised using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT), with strong inter-rater reliability achieved during screening (Cohen's $\kappa = .83$). Narrative synthesis revealed a consistent positive relationship between teachers' ethical-professional orientations and self-efficacy beliefs, particularly in domains of character education, inclusive pedagogy, bullying intervention, and socio-emotional teaching practices. Reported primary-study effect sizes indicated moderate-to-large associations ($r/\beta = .42–.61$), while reflective professional learning, ethics-integrated teacher education, and collaborative moral deliberation emerged as critical mechanisms supporting both ethical awareness and professional confidence. Building on these findings, the review proposes an integrated triadic conceptual framework linking moral reasoning, ethical awareness, moral self-efficacy, and contextual influences through dynamic reciprocal pathways. The review further identifies key evidence gaps, including the lack of cross-cultural validation, longitudinal intervention studies, and integrated psychometric measures. By advancing a theoretically unified understanding of teachers' moral-professional development, this study contributes a novel conceptual synthesis with significant implications for teacher education, policy design, and ethically responsive educational practice.