Abstract:

The current study aimed to determine whether the pre-service teachers’ perceived efficacy beliefs towards the 21st Century skills vary significantly depending on the variables of gender, department, grade level, academic achievement and family income. The participants of the current study employing the survey model are 1086 students attending the Social Studies, Primary School, Turkish, Primary School Science and Pre-school Teacher Education Departments in the Education Faculty of Dumlupınar University in the spring term of 2016-2017 academic year. The data were collected by using “21st Century Skills and Competences Scale Directed at Teaching Candidates” developed by Anagün, Atalay, Kılıç and Yaşar (2006). In the analysis of the data, frequencies, percentages and arithmetic means were calculated and for the between-groups comparisons, the independent samples t-test and one-way variance analysis (ANOVA) were used. At the end of the study, it was found that the pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions of the 21st century skills are high. Only in the sub-dimension of learning and career skills, significant differences were found in favor of the female students in terms of gender variable, in favor of the second year students when compared to the third-year students and in favor of the students whose academic achievement is higher. Moreover, in general the students of the department of pre-school teacher education were found to have higher scores and the students whose family incomes are relatively higher were found to have significantly higher total scores for the self-efficacy perception of the 21st century skills and to have significantly higher scores for the sub-dimensions of learning and career skills and information, media and technology skills.

Keywords: