Description:
Teachers to meet the contemporary educational needs are expected to raise individuals who have information literacy. Raising individuals who have the desired qualifications depends not only on the teachers’ content knowledge but also their self-efficacy and motivation. Self-efficacy beliefs enable exploring the level of teachers’ self-efficacy and anticipating their behaviours in relation to teaching missions and responsibilities. Self-efficacy belief can be defined as individuals’ self-confidence in coping with the situations experienced. When considered generally, teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs may not reflect their beliefs regarding their capability in teaching at a specific area. Therefore, teachers’ self-efficacy in specific areas needs to be examined. This study investigates pre-service elementary teachers' science teaching self-efficacy beliefs as well as the variables that have effects on these beliefs. The study was designed in survey method, and the data were collected through pre-service elementary teachers' Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI-B) developed by Riggs and Enochs (1990). Results has demonstrated how pre-service elementary teachers’ personal Science Teaching Self-efficacy (STEBI-B) and Science Teaching Outcome Expectations (STOE) change depending on the factors such as grade level, gender, type of the high school, and subject field. Findings show that STEBI-B does not change much depending on the above mentioned variables, but STOE was significantly affected by all the variables except for gender.