Evaluation of Pre-service Teachers’ Academic Self-efficacy Levels in Terms of Some Certain Variables

AbstractOne of the important concepts in Bandura's Social Learning Theory is self-efficacy. Self-efficacy: A person's own judgement about achieving behaviours that will allow that person to reach a desired performance. This perception is also very important for the success of teachers. Because, people with high self-efficacy will also have a high persistence rate and will keep struggling in cases of failure. In this respect, aim of the study is to determine the self-efficacy levels of senior students in Ahi Evran University Faculty of Education (n=315) and to present the differences caused by gender, department and average academic scores. In this research, survey model is used and as the data collecting tool Self-efficacy Scale which was developed by Owen and Froman (1988) and adapted to Turkish by Ekici (2012) is used. Validity and reliability tests of this data collecting tool were also carried out by Ekici (2012). Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient for the general of the scale was found as .904; it is found as .780 for social status dimension, .863 for cognitive applications dimension and .619 for technical skills dimension. Results of the research showed that the self-efficacy level of the senior students in Ahi Evran University Faculty of Education is above average for cognitive applications and technical skills; on the other hand, it is below average for social status. For social status and technical skills, gender has no effect on the academic self-efficacy level, however; it is seen that for cognitive applications, gender has a significant effect favouring female students. In accordance with the findings of the study, improving students’ academic self- efficacy levels by regulation of teaching-learning environment is recommended