Investigation of Pre-service Elementary Mathematics Teachers’ Beliefs about Mathematics Teaching Self-Efficacy and the Nature of Mathematics, Teaching and Learning

The present study aims to find out pre-service elementary mathematics teachers’ beliefs about mathematics teaching self-efficacy and mathematics, teaching and learning and to investigate their beliefs in terms of gender and years of study. The study was carried out based on quantitative research methods. In this regard, relational survey model was employed in the study. The study group consists of 198 pre-service mathematics teachers studying at 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades of Primary Mathematics Teacher Education Program at a public university in the 2017-2018 academic year as well as the pre-service teachers graduated in the previous year from the same program. For data collection, “The Mathematics Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale (MTSES)” developed by Enochs, Smith and Huinker (2000), adapted to Turkish by Hacıömeroğlu and Şahin-Taşkın (2010) and the “Mathematics Related Beliefs Scale (MRBS)” developed by Kayan, Haser and Işıksal-Bostan (2013) were used. As a result of the research, it was found that the teacher candidates differ in their beliefs about mathematics teaching proficiency beliefs and nature of mathematics, mathematics teaching and mathematics learning about grade level variable but not by gender variable.

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