Self-efficacy and satisfaction of pre-service early childhood education teachers as a function of perceived needs and experiences

Purpose of this study was to examine the factors that may be linked to pre-service early childhood education teachers' self-efficacy and satisfaction. Totally 140 first year early childhood education students in two public universities in Turkey consisted the sample of the study. To gain a more in depth understanding of pre-service teachers' self-efficacy and satisfaction, this study focused on pre-service teachers' needs, experiences, adjustment to new role of being university student, and perception of friendship relations. Since this research strives to identify the factors that impact pre-service teachers' satisfaction and efficacy beliefs, we utilized path analyses to accomplish this goal. (c) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.