Elementary Preservice Teachers’ Mathematics Teaching Efficacy Belief

Teacher efficacy beliefs are defined as teachers’ beliefs about their abilities which influence students’ performance. although beliefs and content knowledge are important factors in teacher training, this issue is not investigated adequately (enochs, smith and huinker, 2000). this research aims to adapt the mathematics teaching efficacy belief instrument developed by enochs et al. (2000) and determine elementary preservice teachers’ efficacy beliefs concerning mathematics teaching. the adapted instrument includes 17 items and factor loading for these items were different in comparison to original. cronbach alpha coefficient for the overall instrument was 0,969. efa and dfa results showed that the adapted instrument can be considered as valid and reliable. there were no significant differences amongst preservice teachers’ efficacy beliefs regarding gender, achievement and grade level. however, there was a significant relationship between their efficacy beliefs and gender concerning the teachers’ role in effective teaching factor in favor of female preservice teachers.