Primary teachers’ and primary pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and attitudes toward teaching profession

Abstract

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to compare the primary teachers and pre-service primary teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and attitudes toward teaching profession in Turkey. Descriptive method was used in the study and the study was carried out on 180 first grade and 107 fourth grade primary pre-service teachers at the Faculty of Education in Rize University and 131 primary teachers working in the primary schools located in Çayeli (Rize) district. The Attitude Scale towards Teaching Profession (Özgür, 1994) and the Turkish form of the Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale (Baloğlu and Karadağ, 2008) were used as data gathering instrument in the study. The study results revealed that the first grade primary pre-service teachers’ scores on the attitudes towards teaching professions were statistically higher than the scores of the fourth grade primary pre-service teachers and of the primary teachers. However, the study results indicated that the teaching self-efficacy scores of the first grade pre-service teachers were statistically lower than the teaching self-efficacy scores of the fourth grade pre-service teachers and primary teachers. On the other hand, the study results showed that females’ attitudes towards teaching profession were higher than the attitudes of their male counterparts whereas self-efficacy scores did not differentiate due to the gender of the primary pre-service teachers and primary teachers. Moreover, the study results indicated that there were not any significant correlation between the self-efficacy and attitudes scores of the pre-service teachers and primary teachers.