Teaching Efficacy of Physical Education Teacher Candidates

In this research it is aimed to identify the teaching efficacy of physical education teacher candidates in Turkey and analyzing their efficacy in respect of gender, grade variables. Research group consists of 689 (Mage=21.728, SD=2.043) physical education teacher candidates that study in 3rd & 4th grade of Physical Education and Sports Teaching Department of 6 different universities located in different cities of Turkey, 368 (53.4%) of these preservice teachers are male and 321 (46.6%) of them are female. As the data collection tool, personal information form and Physical Education Teaching Efficacy Scale were used. In analysis of data, t-test technique was used for independent groups and descriptive statistics (number, per cent, arithmetic means and Standard deviation) were used to identify the difference between and dependent and independent variables. As a result, it was concluded that teaching efficacy level of physical education teacher candidates were in medium level, physical education teacher candidates felt themselves sufficient about the subject such as using and managing lesson field and tools efficiently, providing lesson safety, motivation, communication, using computer and internet technologies, they faced with problems about transferring of information that they obtained from lessons to practice, efficacy levels of female preservice teachers were higher than male preservice teachers and physical education teacher candidates in 3rd & 4th grade had similar values in terms of efficacy. Key Words: physical education, teaching efficacy, teacher educatio