This study investigated Turkish preservice English language teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs over the course of a 4-year language teacher education (LTE) program. Teacher self-efficacy, or teachers’ confidence in their ability to perform specific teaching tasks, is a way of understanding teachers’ pedagogical capabilities. Drawing on survey data from 261 preservice teachers in two LTE programs in Türkiye, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted that resulted in a 34-item survey with 6 factors: (1) language instruction, (2) classroom proficiency and language use, (3) culture, (4) student-focused instruction, (5) technology, and (6) assessment. The newly developed survey accounted for 59.21% of variance and showed high internal consistency (α = .97). Utilizing this new survey, a cross-sectional analysis was conducted looking at teachers’ self-efficacy across their 4 years of study. This group of preservice teachers showed highest confidence in their ability to incorporate technology in their teaching, whereas they showed the least confidence in their ability for language instruction. Teachers’ self-efficacy did gradually increase over the 4-year program in some areas, but pairwise differences were not statistically significant. These results are discussed in relation to studies on LTE and teacher self-efficacy, which have historically shown mixed results. Pedagogical implications are discussed in relation to LTE programs and teachers’ personal development.
Karas et al. (Fri,) studied this question.