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Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 664–675
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Turkish preservice science teachers’ efficacy beliefs regardingscience teaching and their beliefs about classroom management
Ayse Savran Gencera, Jale Cakiroglub,�
aDepartment of Secondary Science & Mathematics Education, Faculty of Education, Pamukkale University, 20020-Denizli, TurkeybDepartment of Elementary Education, Faculty of Education, Middle East Technical University, 06531-Ankara, Turkey
Received 9 September 2005; accepted 28 September 2005
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore Turkish preservice science teachers’ science teaching efficacy and classroom
management beliefs. Data in this study were collected from a total number of 584 preservice science teachers utilizing the
Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument and the attitudes and beliefs on classroom control (ABCC) inventory. Data
analysis indicated that preservice science teachers generally expressed positive efficacy beliefs regarding science teaching. In
addition, results revealed that participants were interventionist on the instructional management dimension, whereas they
favored non-interventionist style on the people management dimension of the ABCC inventory.
r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Preservice science teachers; Self-efficacy beliefs; Classroom management beliefs
1. Introduction
Teacher efficacy has emerged as one of the fewteacher characteristics that consistently relates toteaching and learning over the past 25 years.Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2001) de-fined teacher efficacy as ‘‘a teacher’s judgment of hisor her capabilities to bring about desired outcomesof student engagement and learning, even amongthose students who may be difficult or unmoti-vated’’ (p. 783).
Researchers have shown that teacher efficacy hasbeen linked to a variety of teaching behaviors and
ee front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
te.2005.09.013
ing author. Tel.: +90 312 210 4051;
0 1180.
esses: [email protected] (A.S. Gencer),
u.tr (J. Cakiroglu).
student outcomes such as achievement (Ashton &Webb, 1986; Gibson & Dembo, 1984; Ross, 1992)and motivation (Midgley, Feldlaufer, & Eccles, 1989;Woolfolk, Rosoff, & Hoy, 1990). Teachers’ efficacyjudgments are highly correlated with persistence at atask and exhibiting a greater academic focus (Gibson& Dembo, 1984), teachers’ enjoyment of teaching(Watters & Ginns, 1995), and greater degrees of risktaking (Ashton & Webb, 1986). Further, extensiveresearch on efficacy of teachers suggests that teacherswith a high sense of efficacy are more willing toimplement instructional innovations and competentteaching methods to be effective teacher (Czerniak &Lumpe, 1996; Guskey, 1988; Stein & Wang, 1988),devote more time to teach science and are mostcapable of activity-based science teaching withregard to teachers with a low sense of efficacy(Enochs & Riggs, 1990; Riggs & Enochs, 1990).
.
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Teacher efficacy would also be related withteacher’s classroom management approaches (Hen-son, 2001; Woolfolk & Hoy, 1990). Doyle (1986)suggested that one of the major tasks of teaching isto establish and maintain order in the classroom.Within the difficulty of this task, establishingclassroom discipline and motivating students wereperceived as the greatest concern of preserviceteachers (Evans & Tribble, 1986) and beginningteachers (Veenman, 1984). For example, Ingersoll(2001) studied approximately 6700 teachers in theUS and states that approximately 30% of theteachers or so who chose to leave the professionidentify student discipline as one of the reasons thatcaused them to give up teaching. Since that task ismore problematic for beginning and preserviceteachers, Henson postulated that the relationshipsbetween teachers’ classroom management and self-efficacy beliefs may provide ways in which anindividual’s expectation for success impacts class-room management behavior. Conversely, Woolfolkand Hoy suggested that beliefs about how tomanage and motivate students as well as initialsuccess in acting on these beliefs may be related tothe development of a sense of efficacy for beginningteachers. Teachers’ with a higher sense of efficacytended to favor more humanistic and less control-ling classroom management orientations in howthey handle their students’ behaviors (Enochs,Scharmann, & Riggs, 1995; Henson, 2001; Wool-folk & Hoy, 1990; Woolfolk et al., 1990), used morepositive behavior management strategies (Emmer &Hickman, 1991; Saklofske, Michayluk, & Randha-wa, 1988) and had more preventative, rather thanrestorative beliefs with regard to behavior problems(Jordan, Kircaali-Iftar, & Diamond, 1993). Ingeneral, teachers who believe they can successfullyinstruct students who have learning or behavioralproblems are more likely to include such students intheir classroom than are teachers who doubt theirability to instruct or motivate these students(Ashton & Webb, 1986).
Some researchers argue that beliefs about teach-ing and learning are well established by the timeprospective teachers enter teacher preparationprograms (Kagan, 1992; Pajares, 1992; Richardson,1996). Over a decade ago, Pintrich (1990) suggestedthat beliefs will ultimately prove to be the mostvaluable psychological construct to teacher educa-tion. The development of teacher efficacy beliefs,e.g., among prospective teachers has generated agreat deal of research interest because once efficacy
beliefs are established they appear to be somewhatresistant to change.
In an effort to improve science teaching inTurkish schools, it would be useful to betterunderstand preservice science teachers’ beliefs re-garding science teaching and classroom manage-ment. The purpose of this study was to examineTurkish preservice science teachers’ efficacy andclassroom management beliefs. Specifically, thestudy explored the interrelationships between tea-cher efficacy beliefs and classroom managementbeliefs of preservice science teachers. In addition,gender and years in university differences in theperception of efficacy and classroom managementbeliefs also were questioned.
2. Theoretical framework
2.1. The construct and measurement of teacher
efficacy
The conceptualization of teacher efficacy hasbeen based on Bandura’s (1977, 1997) socialcognitive theory and his construct of self-efficacy.Bandura described perceived self-efficacy as ‘‘beliefsin one’s capabilities to organize and execute thecourses of action required to produce given attain-ments’’ (p. 3). He postulated that efficacy beliefswere powerful predictors of behavior because theywere ultimately self-referent in nature and directedtoward perceived abilities given specific task.Such beliefs influence the courses of actionpeople choose to pursue, how much effort theywill expended in given endeavors, how long theywill persist in the face of obstacles and failures. Inhis theory, Bandura theorized that behavior is basedon two sources: outcome expectations andself-efficacy expectations. He defined outcomeexpectancy as a person’s estimate that a givenbehavior will lead to certain outcomes whereas anefficacy expectation is the conviction that onecan successfully execute the behavior required toproduce the outcomes.
Many researchers have applied Bandura’s (1977)social cognitive theory and his construct of self-efficacy to teachers. Based on Bandura’s construct,Ashton and Webb (1986) were among the firstresearchers to develop a multi-dimensional model ofteacher efficacy for assessing two dimensions ofteacher efficacy. Following Ashton and Webb’swork, in attempt to further development of teacherefficacy belief instrument, Gibson and Dembo
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(1984) developed a 30-item Likert-type teacherefficacy scale to measure two dimensions of teacherefficacy. Factor analysis of the items yielded a two-factor structure, one that Gibson and Dembo calledpersonal teaching efficacy assumed to reflect self-efficacy, and another called general teaching efficacyassumed to capture outcome expectancy. Gibsonand Dembo concluded that teacher efficacy is multi-dimensional, consisting of at least two dimensionsand may influence certain patterns of classroombehavior.
Reinforcing Bandura’s definition of self-efficacyas a situation-specific construct, Riggs and Enochs(1990) developed an instrument to measure efficacyof teaching science—the Science Teaching EfficacyBelief Instrument (STEBI). Consistent with Gibsonand Dembo, they have found two distinct dimen-sions, the first one was named as personal scienceteaching efficacy (PSTE) belief scale which reflectselementary science teachers’ confidence in theirability to teach science and the second was namedas science teaching outcome expectancy (STOE)scale which reflects elementary science teachers’beliefs that student learning can be influenced bygiven effective instruction.
The construct of teacher efficacy has beenexplored by a number of researchers in recent years.In response to the confusion how to best measureteacher efficacy, Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy,and Hoy (1998) and Tschannen-Moran and Wool-folk Hoy (2001) proposed an integrated model ofefficacy development in the cyclical nature ofteacher efficacy that emerged from two interrelatedfactors of teaching task analysis for the givencontext and assessment of competence in thiscontext. The model postulates that teachers drawinformation to make these assessments from foursources as suggested by Bandura (1997); enactivemastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbalpersuasion, and physiological arousal. Within thismodel, teacher’s efficacy judgments are the result ofthe interaction between a personal judgment of therelative importance of factors that make teachingdifficult and an assessment of his or her personalteaching competence or skill. It was postulated thata valid measure of teacher efficacy must measureteachers’ assessments of their competence across thewide range of activities and tasks in terms of theresources and constraints in particular teachingcontexts.
In the past two decades, many cross-culturalresearch studies have investigated the appropriate-
ness of transferring Western theories, constructs,and measuring instruments for use in non-Westerncultures (Ho & Hau, 2004). Despite the extensiveresearch on teacher efficacy in Western countries, alimited number of attempts have been made toexamine this important construct in non-Westerncontexts (Gorrell & Hwang, 1995; Lin &Gorrell, 2001; Lin, Gorrell, & Taylor, 2002; Rich,Lev, & Fisher, 1996). These studies suggestedthat the concept of teacher efficacy may beinfluenced by the unique features of cultures. Forexample, explorations of preservice teacher efficacyin Taiwan by Lin and Gorrell suggested thatconstruct of teacher efficacy was very much subjectto cultural influences, such as beliefs about the rolesof teachers. Similarly, Lin et al. examined theinfluence of culture and education on US andTaiwanese preservice teachers’ efficacy beliefs.They found that preservice teachers in these twocountries may have conceptually different expecta-tions of teaching.
Although there is a significant amount of researchdealing with teacher efficacy in other countries,there have been a limited number of studies inTurkey. For example, Cakiroglu, Cakiroglu, andBoone (2005) compared preservice elementaryteachers’ sense of efficacy beliefs in Turkey andthe USA. They reported that the preservice teachersin these two countries may have different scienceteaching efficacy beliefs. The results also indicatedthat preservice elementary teachers in the US hadsignificantly more positive beliefs in their ability toinfluence student learning in science than their peersin Turkey. However, a similar difference was notobserved for STOE beliefs. In another study,Tekkaya, Cakiroglu, and Ozkan (2004) investigatedTurkish preservice science teachers’ understandingof science concepts, attitude toward science teachingand their efficacy beliefs regarding science teaching.Although the findings of their study indicated thatthe majority of the participants held misconceptionsconcerning fundamental science concepts, theygenerally had positive self-efficacy beliefs regardingscience teaching.
Many studies (Ginns & Tulip, 1995; Hoy &Woolfolk, 1990; Huinker & Madison, 1997; Lin &Gorrell, 2001; Mulholland & Wallace, 2001; Soodak& Podell, 1997; Woolfolk Hoy & Spero, 2005) haveinvestigated changes and development of prospec-tive teachers’ efficacy beliefs during teacher educa-tion programs. As preservice teachers progressthrough some educational courses such as science
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methods and practicum courses, and on to completetheir student teaching, their efficacy beliefs maychange.
In terms of gender effect for teacher efficacybeliefs, there is a discrepancy in the research withsome indicating females tend to have a higher senseof efficacy (Evans & Tribble, 1986), but othersfinding an opposing result or no difference (Can-trell, Young, & Moore, 2003; Mulholland, Dorman,& Odgers, 2004; Riggs, 1991). The research furthersuggests that females may have a stronger sense ofefficacy than males due to the fact that the teachingprofession predominantly is a female profession(Kalaian & Freeman, 1994). For Turkish in-serviceteachers, Celep (2000) found that among thevariables of education level, age, and sexuality,teachers’ sense of efficacy varied only according totheir age.
2.2. Teachers’ classroom management approaches
Teachers generally perceive classroom manage-ment to be one of the most enduring and wide-spread problems in education. In terms of providingan effective learning environment in a classroom,which is a complex endeavor, research findingscontinuously have shown that the key to successfulmanagement is the teacher’s ability to manage theclassroom and to organize instruction (Brophy,1988; Doyle, 1986; Emmer, Evertson, & Worsham,2000; Weade & Evertson, 1988). In this sense,Brophy defined classroom management as ‘‘theactions taken to create and maintain a learningenvironment conducive to attainment of the goals ofinstruction-arranging the physical environment ofthe classroom, establishing rules and procedures,maintaining attention to lessons and engagement inacademic activities’’ (p. 2).
Many studies indicate that beliefs regardingclassroom management differ among teachers andplay an important role in effective instruction. Chen(1995) found that teachers from different countriesvaried in their preferences in handling studentbehaviors. In a study conducted by Turkishelementary school teachers, Akkok, Askar, andSucuoglu (1995) reported that speaking out of turn,being extremely noisy, and complaining aboutfriends to teachers unnecessarily were seen as themost frequent behavior problems in Turkish class-rooms. In addition, mocking friends, disobeying theschool rules, and disturbing others were among theother behavior problems. In another study, Turn-
uklu and Galton (2001) reported that the mostcommon problem in Turkish elementary schoolswas found to be noise, shouting out, and talkingwithout permission. With respect to type of thedisciplinary measures taken to deal with thebehavioral problems at schools in Turkey, Turkec(1986) reported that warning and advising thestudent was the most frequent strategy used by theteacher (45.9%). Referral to the counseling service(8.3%), talking to the parents (6.8), and referral tothe disciplinary committee (5.3%) were some othermeasures used.
It is generally believed that teachers’ attitudes andbeliefs toward classroom management have beenlinked to their classroom management orientations.Martin and Baldwin (1992) asserted that teachers’approaches toward managing the classroom wouldvary as a function of their beliefs regarding thenature of appropriate and inappropriate behaviorsand how to control them. Accordingly, Glickmanand Tamashiro (1980) classified beliefs towarddiscipline on a continuum of control that reflectsthe extent to which teachers want to exercise controlover students. The continuum ranges from non-interventionists at one extreme to interventionists atthe other, with interactionalists midway betweenthem.
According to Martin, Yin, and Baldwin (1998),the non-interventionist ‘‘presupposes the child hasan inner drive that needs to find its expression in thereal world’’ (p. 6). At the opposite end of thecontinuum are interventionists who emphasize‘‘what the outer environment does to the humanorganism to cause it to develop in its particularway’’ (Martin et al., 1998, p. 6). The non-interven-tionist is the least directive and controlling, whilethe interventionist is most controlling. According toMartin et al., midway between these two extremes,interactionalists focus on ‘‘what the individual doesto modify the external environment, as well as whatthe environment does to shape the individual’’(p. 7). They further state that ‘‘interactionalistsstrive to find solutions satisfactory to both teacherand students, employing same of the techniques asnon-interventionists and interventionist’’ (Martinet al., 1998, p. 7).
In an attempt to develop a multi-dimensionalconstruct of classroom management, Martin andBaldwin (1992) designed the inventory of classroommanagement style (ICMS) to measure teachers’perceptions of their classroom management beliefson a continuum of control that ranges from
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interventionist to interactionalist to non-interven-tionist as originally conceptualized by Glickmanand Tamashiro (1980). By utilizing this inventoryduring the last decade, Martin and her colleagueshave conducted very substantial research thatfocuses on beliefs regarding classroom managementdifferences among teachers and whether these playan important role in effective classroom manage-ment. These studies have consistently shown a clearlink between teacher characteristics and theirmanagement approaches.
In a continuation of previous research regardingthe nature of classroom management styles, Martinand Yin (1997) searched out whether there weredifferences between the classroom management stylesof male and female teachers by utilizing the attitudesand beliefs on classroom control (ABCC) inventory,which was a refined form of the ICMS. The studyindicated that male teachers were more intervention-ist on two of the three ABCC subscales, instructionalmanagement and behavior management.
3. The structure of Turkish education
According to the Basic Law of National Educa-tion, the Turkish Education System consists of twoparts: formal and non-formal education. Formaleducation is the regular education at the level frompreschool to higher education. The Ministry ofNational Education has the overall responsibilityfor preschool, primary, and secondary education.The responsibility of higher education is under theHigher Education Council (YOK). The reform in1997 comprises primary education implied majorchanges in structure and functioning of primaryeducation. The reform law extended the 5 years ofschooling of compulsory education to 8 years ofuninterrupted basic education with the starting ageof six. Secondary education covers general, voca-tional, and technical high schools that provide atleast 3 years following primary education. Admis-sion to higher education is centralized and based ona nation-wide single-stage examination, named theStudent Selection Examination, administered by theStudent Selection and Placement Center under thesupervision of the Higher Education Council everyyear (Saban, 2003).
4. The structure of teacher education in Turkey
In an effort to further improvements of teachereducation system with regard to structure and
content, substantial reforms have been carried inthe last two decades. With the Higher EducationLaw in 1981, a unified system of higher educationhad been introduced; consequently, the responsi-bility and activities of teacher training were alltransferred from the Ministry of Education to theHigher Education Council in 1982. With the highereducation reform, 3- and 4-year Teacher TrainingInstitutes at university level for middle schools(lower secondary) and high schools (upper second-ary) were all transformed into 4-year Departmentsof Faculties of Education, whereas 2-year Educa-tional Institutes training elementary school teacherswere converted into Higher Schools of Educationwithout any change in the duration. In 1989, theseschools were also reorganized within Faculties ofEducation as 4-year Elementary Education Depart-ments (Simsek & Yildirim, 2001).
Considering the teacher requirements in relationto the 8 years of compulsory primary educationimplemented since 1997, the Ministry of Educationand the Higher Education Council have collabo-rated to implement further reforms in teachertraining. Such a reform that implied major restruc-turing in the organization of teacher trainingdepartments and programs was put into practicein the 1998–1999 academic years. With this reformeducational departments and programs were re-structured in a similar manner that of the schoolsystem (Simsek & Yildirim, 2001).
In the new structure, teachers to be recruited aspreschool teachers, classroom teachers (grades 1–5),and subject area teachers (grades 5–8) in primaryschools have to follow 4-year program withbachelor’s degree as in the former teacher trainingsystem. Also, a bachelor degree in common subjectsqualifies for teaching in secondary schools as inprimary schools. In terms of teaching in secondaryschools for the study areas of science, mathematics,and social require non-dissertation graduate de-grees. There are two paths for this program: one is5-year integrated programs of secondary schooldepartments under education faculties; and anotheris non-thesis graduate programs which require abachelor of science degree from faculties of Arts,Sciences, and other related faculties (Simsek &Yildirim, 2001).
In addition to the reorganization of teachereducation programs, one of the important reflec-tions of the teacher training reforms that was uponthe curriculum implied the more emphasis on fieldexperience, technology literacy, and methods of
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teaching subject matter courses (Cakiroglu &Cakiroglu, 2003; Simsek & Yildirim, 2001;YOK, 1998).
The Elementary Science Education Program inTurkey uses a curriculum, which is a result of thereform efforts in teacher education programsthroughout the country since 1998. In Turkey,science teachers are educated through 4-year under-graduate programs and these programs need tofollow very similar coursework that is suggested bythe Higher Education Council. Preservice scienceteachers during the typical 4-year coursework arerequired to take a number of courses in the differentbranches of science, namely biology, physics, andchemistry and several courses related to teachingprofession (Table 1). Four years of courseworkinclude overall 148 semester credit hours.
All of the teacher education programs in Turkeyare intended to educate prospective teachers for theschools of the Ministry of National Education andprivate schools, which have centralized curriculathroughout the country. In a typical science class-room in Turkey, science teachers generally uselecture and discussion methods. Important conceptsand problems related with the concepts are ex-plained by the teacher, some representative ques-tions/problems about the subject are solved by thestudents using the textbook and some supplemen-tary test books.
However, nowadays the Ministry of Educationhas completed the reform that implies changes inthe content of elementary and secondary educationin order to capture more elusive concept ofconstructivists and inquiry-based orientation para-digm shifts in education.
Table 1
A summary of courses related to science, education and teaching
profession in the sample of preservice teachers required to
complete in Turkey
Courses Total credit
Biology 16
Physics 14
Chemistry 14
Introduction to teaching profession 3
Learning and development 3
Instructional planning and evaluation 4
Methods of science teaching 6
School experience 6
Practice teaching 5
5. Method
5.1. Participants
Data in this study were collected from a totalnumber of 584 preservice science teachers enrolled inteacher education programs of the nine selecteduniversities in Turkey. Among the participants, 412of them were seniors who were ready to be teachers insecondary schools and the remaining were juniors whohad not started to their teaching practice experience.The sample included 357 females and 227 males.
5.2. Instruments
The participants completed the adapted forms ofthe two questionnaires; STEBI Form B (STEBI-B)(Enochs & Riggs, 1990) and the ABCC inventory(Martin et al., 1998).
5.2.1. STEBI Form B
The STEBI-B was designed to measure efficacy ofteaching science for preservice elementary teachers.The STEBI-B consists of 23 items in a five-pointLikert-type scale ranging from strongly agree tostrongly disagree. The STEBI-B is comprised of twosubscales: the PSTE (13 items) and the STOE (10items).
The STEBI-B was first adapted to Turkish byTekkaya et al. (2004). This version of the STEBI-Bwas submitted to principal components analysiswith varimax rotation to confirm underlying dimen-sions of the scale. A factor analysis suggests thefactorial structure of the STEB-I developed byEnochs and Riggs was the same as that which wasobserved for the Turkish sample. After reversescoring of negatively worded items, high scores onthe PSTE subscale indicate greater science teachingself-efficacy beliefs to have positive students’ out-comes. Likewise, high scores on the STOE subscaleindicate greater outcome expectancy related to thepower of teaching to overcome any negativeinfluences that lie outside the classroom.
Reliability coefficients for the two scales were .79and .71 for the PSTE and STOE, respectively. Theresults of these analyses indicate that the STEBI-Bcould be considered reasonable instrument toproduce valid and reliable data.
5.2.2. The ABCC inventory
The ABCC inventory, an instrument designed tomeasure teachers’ perceptions of their classroom
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management beliefs and practices consists of 26items in a four-point Likert scale format. Responsecategories were accomplished by scoring 4 to‘‘describes me very well’’, 3 to ‘‘describes meusually’’, 2 to ‘‘describes me somewhat’’, and 1 to‘‘describes me not at all’’. Within this inventory,classroom management was defined as a multi-faceted construct that includes three broad dimen-sions: instructional management (14 items), peoplemanagement (eight items), and behavior manage-ment (four items). Instructional management di-mension includes monitoring seat work, structuringdaily routines, and allocating materials. The peoplemanagement dimension pertains to what teachersbelieve about students as persons and what teachersdo to enable them to develop. The third dimension,behavior management, includes providing feedback,commenting on behavior, and giving directions.Each subscale was derived to assess a continuum ofcontrol ranging from interventionist to interaction-alist to non-interventionist that reflects the degree ofteacher power over students (Martin et al., 1998).
The adaptation process of the ABCC inventory toTurkish included translation, validity, and reliabil-ity studies. Factor analysis is performed to confirmunderlying dimensions or factors of the ABCCinventory. Initial principal component analysis withvarimax rotation of the 26 items inventory revealedseven factors with eigenvalues greater than one.However, results of a scree plot indicated that twofactors should be examined. Initial principal com-ponent analysis calling for two factors was con-ducted. In two-factor structure, three items (Items 6,7, and 24) were omitted using a factor loading of .30as the cut-off point, and one item (Item 17) loadedon the wrong factor. After deleting the four items,subsequent factor analysis for the refinement of thetwo-factor structure retained items weighted highlyon their own scale. Three remaining items (Items 23,25, and 26) in the behavioral management scalewere retained on the people management scale.These two factors corresponded to the instructionaland people management scales of the ABCCinventory, accounting for 29.60% of the variancein the respondents’ scores. Behavior managementscale in the original inventory was failed to beincluded in the final form. In the final version of thetwo-factor structure of the ABCC inventory, theinstructional management scale pertained 12 itemswith loadings ranging from .33 to .64 and the peoplemanagement scale pertained 10 items with loadingsranging from .46 to .58. Scale variables were
reached by computing the unweighted mean of theresponses to the items retained within each factor inthe factor analysis. After reverse scoring of someitems, high scores on both subscales of the ABCCinventory reflect more interventionist managementbeliefs while low scores reflect less interventionistmanagement beliefs.
In order to assess the internal consistency of theABCC inventory, Cronbach’s a coefficient wascomputed. Reliability coefficients for the two scaleswere found to be .71 and .73 for instructionalmanagement and the people management, respec-tively.
6. Results
The respondents’ scores on the STEBI-B and theABCC inventory were analyzed by utilizing descrip-tive and inferential statistics. Descriptive analysis ofthe self-efficacy survey indicated generally positiveself-efficacy beliefs expressed by the most ofpreservice teachers regarding science teaching onboth subscales of the STEBI-B. Table 2 displaysindividual item means and standard deviations forthe selected items on both subscales of the STEBI-B.
Thus, preservice science teachers believe in theirability to teach science effectively (PSTE) and theybelieve students can learn science given effectiveinstruction (STOE). In terms of classroom manage-ment, results revealed that preservice science tea-chers favored non-interventionist style on thepeople management subscale, which includes theteacher–student relationships. For example, respon-dents agree in giving students opportunities tocreate their own daily routines, to judge the qualityof their own work, to pursue their own interests andto select their own seats. However, the participantswere found to be more interventionist on theinstructional management subscale, which addressesaspects of classroom management such as monitor-ing seatwork, structuring daily routines and allocat-ing materials. Table 3 displays individual itemmeans and standard deviations for the selecteditems on both subscales of the ABCC inventory.
A series of t-tests was conducted to determinedifferences between male and female preserviceteachers regarding efficacy beliefs and classroommanagement orientations at the significance level.05. However, results revealed no significant differ-ences between male and female prospective teachers’efficacy beliefs and classroom management orienta-tions, as seen in Table 4. Additional t-tests were also
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Table 2
Item means and standard deviations for the subscales of the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI-B)
Mean SD
Subscale: PSTE
I will continually find better ways to teach science. 4.26 .76
I will generally teach science ineffectively. 4.20a .89
I wonder if I will have the necessary skills to teach science. 3.91a .95
When teaching science, I will usually welcome student questions. 4.13 .86
Subscale: STOE
When a student does better than usual in science, it is often because the teacher exerted a little extra effort. 3.37 1.01
When the science grades of students improve, it is often due to their teacher having found a more effective
teaching approach.
3.87 .86
If students underachieving in science, it is most likely due to ineffective science teaching. 3.55 1.09
The inadequacy of a student’s science background can be overcome by good teaching. 4.06 .85
aScoring reversed for these items.
Table 3
Item means and standard deviations for the subscales of the attitudes and beliefs on classroom control (ABCC) inventory
Mean SD
Subscale: instructional management
I believe the teacher should direct the students’ transition from one learning activity to another. 3.39 .71
I believe that students need direction in how to work together. 3.22 .68
I specify a set time for each learning activity and try to stay within my plans. 3.20 .69
I believe class rules are important because they shape the student’s behavior and development. 3.28 .69
Subscale: people management
I believe students should create their own daily routines as this fosters the development of responsibility. 1.61a .69
I believe students will be successful in school if allowed the freedom to pursue their own interests. 1.51a .68
When moving from one learning activity to another, I will allow students to progress at their own rate. 1.88a .64
Students in my classroom are free to use any materials they wish during the learning process. 2.08a .79
aScoring reversed for these items.
Table 4
t-Tests: female versus male preservice science teachers on the
subscales of the STEBI-B and the ABCC inventory
Subscale Gender N Mean SD df p
PSTE Female 357 50.77 6.29 582 .69
Male 227 50.48 7.02
STOE Female 357 35.73 4.90 582 .43
Male 227 35.39 5.19
Instructional management Female 357 36.66 4.35 582 1.22
Male 227 36.07 4.84
People management Female 357 19.19 3.89 582 .57
Male 227 19.39 4.38
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conducted to determine differences between thethird year and the fourth year prospective teachers’efficacy beliefs and classroom management orienta-
tion. Considering the fact that the fourth yearstudents were student teachers who had completedtheir practice teaching experience, while the thirdyear students had not started their practice teachingexperience, yet. Results of the study revealed nosignificant differences between the third year andthe fourth year prospective teachers regardingefficacy beliefs and classroom management orienta-tions, as seen in Table 5.
Pearson product-moment correlations were per-formed to explore whether a relationship existsbetween preservice science teachers’ science teachingefficacy beliefs and their classroom managementbeliefs. Table 6 presents the correlation matrix forefficacy and control variables. Contrary to theexpectation, analyses revealed that there was asignificant positive correlation between the instruc-tional management subscale of the ABCC inventoryand both the PSTE (r ¼ :143, po:01), and the
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Table 5
t-Tests: the third year versus the fourth year preservice science
teachers on the subscales of the STEBI-B and the ABCC
inventory
Subscale Year N Mean SD df p
PSTE 3rd 172 50.49 6.11 582 .67
4th 412 50.73 6.74
STOE 3rd 172 35.16 4.71 582 .18
4th 412 35.77 5.13
Instructional management 3rd 172 36.22 4.40 582 .46
4th 412 36.52 4.62
People management 3rd 172 18.96 3.89 582 .24
4th 412 19.40 4.16
Table 6
Pearson product-moment correlations of the Science Teaching
Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI-B) subscales with the attitudes
and beliefs on classroom control (ABCC) inventory subscales
Subscales PSTE STOE
Instructional management .143� .135�
People management �.339� �.299�
�po:01.
A.S. Gencer, J. Cakiroglu / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 664–675672
STOE (r ¼ :135, po:01) subscales of the STEBI-B.The respondents had confidence to teach scienceeffectively and believed students to learn science butthey tended to be more controlling on the instruc-tional management. However, effect size was smallbased on Cohen’s (1988) suggestion. As expected,there was a significant negative correlation betweenthe people management subscale of the ABCCinventory and both the PSTE (r ¼ �:339, po:01)and the STOE (r ¼ �:299, po:01) subscales of theSTEBI-B with a small effect size. It seems that themore preservice science teachers’ beliefs in theirpersonal abilities to teach science and enhancingstudents’ learning, the less interventionist on peoplemanagement orientation in the manner of whatteachers believe about students as persons and whatteachers do to develop the teacher–student relation-ship.
7. Discussion
Given the importance of a strong sense of self-efficacy belief is related to high student achievementand is a desirable teacher characteristic, it seems
particularly important to examine preservice tea-chers’ efficacy beliefs. In essence, preservice teachersneed to master skills of managing classroom toprevent frustration when they confront with therealities of classroom life. For the improvement ofteacher education programs, it is necessary toexamine factors that influence the development ofa strong sense of efficacy and competent manage-ment strategies among preservice teachers. In fact,experiences in learning to teach are generally aimedto enhance the long-term development of teacherefficacy and to provide effective management skillsof preservice teachers. In so doing, the present studyexplored the preservice science teachers’ perceptionof science teaching efficacy beliefs and classroommanagement beliefs. Specifically, the study investi-gated the relationships between efficacy and class-room management beliefs of preservice scienceteachers.
Beliefs regarding the nature of appropriate andinappropriate student behaviors and how to manageclassrooms vary among teachers and can play animportant role in the determination of teacherbehavior. It was found that preservice scienceteachers generally favored non-interventionist styleon people management and they tend to be moreinterventionist on instructional management. Whenthe participants were asked about student–teacherrelationships, they tend to hold beliefs that favormore flexible approach, while they believed thenecessity of more strict approach in managing theinstruction. The fact that the participants them-selves are still students may be a reason for them tobe more sensitive to student–teacher relationshipsthan instructional management. In addition, teachereducation programs in Turkey generally focus onquality of lesson planning. Besides, the participantshave insufficient experiences in classroom withstudents when compared to their experiences aboutplanning instruction. This might result in morestrict beliefs about instructional management thanpeople management.
As for the relationship between efficacy beliefsand management beliefs, Turkish preservice tea-chers with higher personal science teaching self-efficacy (PSTE) and those higher STOE beliefs hadless interventionist orientation on the people man-agement subscale of ABCC inventory. This resultsupports the findings of previous studies indicatingthat preservice teachers who expect to be effectiveteachers tend also to favor a less controllingorientation toward classroom management (Enochs
ARTICLE IN PRESSA.S. Gencer, J. Cakiroglu / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 664–675 673
et al., 1995; Henson, 2001; Woolfolk & Hoy, 1990;Woolfolk et al., 1990). In terms of instructionalmanagement subscale of ABCC inventory, thepredicted significant negative correlation with thesubscales of efficacy beliefs, however, was notrevealed. On the contrary, preservice teachers withhigher science teaching self-efficacy (PSTE) andSTOE scored more interventionist orientations onthe instructional management subscale of ABCCinventory. It can be concluded that preservicescience teachers may come to believe that it is theway to be effective teachers by maintaining orderand strict controlling students’ instructional activ-ities, even though they have greater confidence intheir abilities to have positive student learning. Thisresult is not similar to findings of some of theprevious studies (Enochs et al., 1995; Woolfolk &Hoy, 1990). Although this study provides insightsabout the relationship between efficacy and man-agement beliefs, this relationship needs furtherattention. However, it may be the case that theapproach to classroom management skills withinthe preservice teacher education programs, as wellas the views about culture of classrooms in Turkeymay be resulting in such different results.
The results also revealed no significant differencesbetween efficacy beliefs of prospective scienceteachers in terms of gender. In fact, there is noconsistency among the findings of different studies.Although this dimension needs in-depth considera-tion, absence of any difference for gender could beconsidered promising. In terms of classroom man-agement beliefs, it is interesting to note that nosignificant differences regarding gender were re-vealed, neither on the instructional management noron the people management subscales of the ABCCinventory. Given the difference in the literature,however, males are more controlling, authoritarian,rigid, impersonal, assertive, and aggressive thantheir female counterparts (Martin & Yin, 1997).
A series of statistical analyses revealed that therewere no significant differences between the thirdyear and fourth year preservice science teachers’management styles and efficacy beliefs. In thisstudy, the fourth year students were studentteachers who had completed their practice teachingexperience, while the third year students had notstarted their practice teaching experience, yet. Inaddition, the fourth year students completed morescience courses and pedagogical courses. However,results seem to indicate that completing practiceteaching course and additional educational courses
were not a significant factor on preservice teachers’efficacy beliefs and classroom management orienta-tion. There is a discrepancy among the findings ofprevious research. For example, while some studiesreported that sense of personal efficacy beliefsincreases during teacher preparation student teach-ing program (Hoy & Woolfolk, 1990; Wenner,2001), the others have found no change or a declinein level of efficacy over the years of preparation(Ginns & Tulip, 1995; Lin & Gorrell, 2001).Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2001) arguethat discrepancies in these findings can be related tothe way efficacy is measured. Hoy and Woolfolk(1990) postulated that a significant phase ofsocialization begins when students enter the actualworld of teaching as practice teaching. It seems thatstudent teachers’ efficacy beliefs are more likely todecline as a result of student teaching due to theirvulnerability to pressures of teaching when con-fronted with the realities and complexities of theteaching task. With regard to classroom manage-ment beliefs, Hoy and Woolfolk (1990) found thatstudent teachers were more controlling after com-pleting their practice teaching experience than theirjunior counterparts who had not taken theirpractice teaching experience. It seems that studentteachers’ efficacy beliefs are more likely to declineand they are more custodial and controlling as aresult of student teaching due to their vulnerabilityto pressures of teaching when confronted with therealities and complexities of the teaching task.
8. Conclusion
In an effort to inform teacher education practicesin Turkey, this study provides insights to investigatepreservice teachers’ science teaching efficacy beliefsand classroom management approaches. Suchresearch findings can help researchers, teachereducators, and education programs in assistingpreservice teachers to build such beliefs, in revisiontheir program or practicum experiences result inenhancing preservice teachers’ sense of efficacy andconceptual understanding of management for suc-cessful teaching. Teacher education courses inparticular should focus on Bandura’s four strategiesfor increasing efficacy providing opportunities formastery experiences, physiological and emotionalarousal, vicarious experience, and social persuasion.In agreement with other researchers (Lin & Gorrell,2001; Mulholland et al., 2004), we recommend tomonitor the prospective teachers’ science teaching
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efficacy beliefs as they progress through the 4-yearpreservice teacher education program. Early detec-tion of preservice teachers’ efficacy beliefs andclassroom management beliefs is crucial to ensuringthat new teachers will succeed in their practice. Inaddition, there is a need for a follow-up longitudinalstudy of these preservice teachers in their earlyteaching careers as a future research. A strengthen-ing of healthy beliefs about teaching in preserviceteachers is an important educational concern in thenew millennium.
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