Abstract:

Teachers today can influence their environment and events through their behavior, therefore, each teacher’s teaching style has an impact on students’ academic achievement. The effective design of learning environments and systematic guidance of students depend on teachers’ efficacy and personality traits. The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between preservice physical education teachers’ self-efficacy and proactive personality traits. Study group consists of 386 physical education students (122 women and 264 men) of four universities in the spring semester of 2015/2016. Data were collected using a Personal Information Form developed by the researcher, an Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (ASES) and a short version of the Proactive Personality Scale (SPPS). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods, t-test, OneWay ANOVA and Tukey multiple comparison test. Participants reported moderate levels of self-efficacy and low levels of proactive personality. Male participants had significantly lower social status scale scores than female participants. An interesting result was that self-efficacy decreased with age. Fourth-grade students’ academic self-efficacy and sub-scale scores were statistically lower than those of first-, second- and thirdgrade students. Sports engagement were found to have no effect on participants’ academic self-efficacy and proactive personality. Another interesting result was that participants’ academic self-efficacy decreased along with an increase in grade point average (GPA) scores. Participants’ proactive personality scores decreased with an increase in their academic self-efficacy scores. Future studies are warranted to assess the correlation of academic self-efficacy and proactive personality with different variables.

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