The effects of the blended teaching practice process on prospective teachers' teaching self - Efficacy and epistemological beliefs

Problem Statement: The purpose of pre-service teacher training processes is to ensure that prospective teachers are well-equipped and have the skills necessary to succeed as teachers. The most important step in this process, which includes theoretical and applied activities, is teaching practice. In this process, prospective teachers try to solve real problems, observe learning processes, and witness differences between the planned environment and the real world. In addition, this process gives them a chance to benefit from a variety of approaches in the real world. Therefore, by creating new experience opportunities, the process of teaching practice should offer opportunities for prospective teachers to recognize their needs, and to make changes in their ways of thinking and modifications to their belief systems, since these facts are the fundamental dynamics used in guiding our actions. Purpose: The study was conducted to examine the effects of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) supported blended teaching practice processes on prospective teachers' teaching self-efficacy and epistemological belief. Methods: A pretest and post test design without a control group was employed in the experimental study. The study group consisted of 43 male and female students enrolled in the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology, Hacettepe University, for the 2006-2007 spring semester, and the BTO 492 Teaching Practice course, which is compulsory for senior students, of 112 hours, with a minimum of eight hours a week. For this research, theoretical activities in the course are composed of a face-to-face environment and the web media. In this study, the Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale and Epistemological Belief Scale were used. Descriptive statistics and t-tests were applied in the analysis of data obtained from these scales. Findings and Results: At the end of the process, a meaningful maturation has been recorded in the epistemological belief that "learning is based on effort," Maturation is meaningful for students having both high and low general academic success levels. While no meaningful maturation has been observed in males, meaningful maturation has been detected in females. The process has also resulted in meaningful and positive changes in the teaching self-efficacy belief of prospective teachers, The change in the teaching self-efficacy belief has been observed to be similar in groups different from each other in terms of academic success levels. When analyzed in terms of gender, a meaningful change has been revealed in favor of males. Reccommendations: These environments should be tested with new practices; similar environments can enrich teaching practice lessons and can meet the expectations of students at a higher level. It is felt that teaching self-efficacy and the epistemological belief are processed as contradictory beliefs. This situation should be tested with new studies in future.