Abstract:

“The purpose of this study was to investigate science-teacher candidates’ science teaching self-efficacy beliefs according to grade level and gender. A survey approach was used in the study. The sample consisted of 192 first and fourth grade pre-service science teachers enrolled in the department of Science Teacher Training in the Education Faculty at Bayburt University. Data was collected using a likert type test, “science teaching self-efficacy belief scale” with 23 items, adapted to Turkish by the researcher, and originally developed by Enochs-Riggs (1990). The coefficient of Cronbach alpha for the Turkish version of the test was found to be 0.81. Variance analysis (two-way ANOVA) was performed on the collected data to reveal whether there are significant differences in science teacher candidates’ self-efficacy beliefs of science teaching according to grade level and gender. The results of the analysis showed that science-teacher candidates’ self-efficacy beliefs of science teaching are considerably high. In addition, the same findings indicated that there were statistically significant differences in science-teacher candidates’ self-efficacy beliefs of science teaching with respect to both grade level and gender, in favors of female. .

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