THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-EFFICACY AND ATTITUDES OF CHEMISTRY TEACHER CANDIDATES

This study has been carried out with the aim of investigating the relationship between the attitudes of chemistry teacher candidates towards chemistry in laboratory classes and their self-efficacy beliefs. Teacher candidates composed of undergraduate students who have already taken or are currently taking laboratory classes and study Chemistry Teaching have participated in this study. Relational survey model has been used in this study. Chemistry Attitude Scale (CAS) developed by Geban, Ertepinar, Yilmaz, Altin & Sahbaz (1994) and Chemistry Self-efficacy Scale (CSS) were used as data collection tools. Simple correlation and one-way analysis of variance in independent groups have been used in order to analyse data. According to the results from study data, there is a meaningful linear relationship between self-efficacy scores and attitude scores of teacher candidates. An increase in self-efficacy scores and attitude scores of teacher candidates with regard to consecutive grade levels has also been observed. Self-efficacy and attitude scores of the students have been compared by using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). However, a meaningful difference in self-efficacy scores and attitude scores of students with regard to grade levels has not been observed.