Investigating Pre-service Gifted Education Teachers' Self-efficacy toward Science Teaching and Scientific Attitudes

Abstract

ProblemStatement:Education of gifted has attracted attention for a few decades. Components ofgifted education environments like identification, differentiation of teachingprocesses, social-emotional characteristics of gifted students and educatingteachers of gifted students etc. have been studied in different studies. Giftedstudents have different learning needs apart from their pers. So teachers ofgifted students should master on characteristics of gifted students andlearning needs of them. Gifted students have intrinsic interest and motivationtoward science and these students need their teachers to guide themeffectively. So their teachers should have positive viewpoint and attitudesabout science. Purposeof the Study: The purpose of this study is to explore thepre-service gifted education teachers’ self-efficacy toward science teachingand scientific attitudes based on different variables (gender, grade level,etc.) and to assert the relationship between self-efficacy and scientificattitude.Method: The general model of the research was aquantitative study, and ninety undergraduate students in the Gifted Educationprogram were voluntarily participated in this study. The data were collected bythe use of Scientific Attitude Inventory and the Science Teaching EfficacyBelief Instrument. The researcher used an unpaired t-test, analysis of varianceand a correlation method to analyze the data.Findingsand Results:: The results indicated that there weresignificantly positive correlations between grade level and scientific attitudeand participants’ self-efficacy skills for science teaching. In other words,students in higher grade levels show better self-efficacy and scientificattitudes for science teaching than students in lower grades. Additionally,even though the total of self-efficacy points toward science teaching wereincreased, the outcome expectancy points toward science teaching were notsignificantly increased.Conclusions and Recommendations: It is concluded that pre-servicegifted teachers’ scientific attitudes and self-efficacy toward scince teachingaffect each other and correlate positively. In this regard, educationalsettings that provide effective opportunities to positively increase students’both self-efficacy beliefs toward science teaching and scientific attitudesshould be organized.