Turkish Pre-service History Teachers' Self-efficacy Beliefs and Motivations on the Teaching Profession

Abstract

This study aims to identify the self-efficacy beliefs and motivations of Turkish pre-service history teachers, with respect to "the teaching profession in general", as well as "the history teaching profession specifically". With a descriptive aim, is the study will be based survey research. The research uses an explanatory mixed method research design based on both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The participants of this study were 40 pre-service senior grade history teachers from two teacher training institutions in Turkey. The data were collected through a self-efficacy questionnaire form and interviews that were carried out during the spring semester of the 2015-2016 academic year. The results showed that the majority of the pre-service history teachers had generally high self-efficacy beliefs on both "generic teacher competencies" and "subject-specific competencies for history teachers" and high motivational perceptions. However, the participants' self-efficacy beliefs and motivation for the history teaching profession specifically were shown to be higher than their self-efficacy beliefs and motivation for the teaching profession in general. Furthermore, when the data were analyzed in terms of the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs and motivations, it was identified that there is a relationship between the two to a certain extent.