Investigating Pre-service Gifted Education Teachers' Self efficacy toward Science Teaching and Scientific Attitudes

Problem Statement: Education of gifted has attracted attention for a few decades. Components of gifted education environments like identification, differentiation of teaching processes, social -emotional characteristics of gifted students and educating teachers of gifted students etc. have been studied in different studies. Gifted students have different learning needs apart from their pers. So teachers of gifted students should master on characteristics of gifted students and learning needs of them. Gifted students have intrinsic interest and motivation toward science and these students need their teachers to guide them effectively. So their teachers should have positive viewpoint and attitudes about science. Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this study is to explore the pre-service gifted education teachers' self-efficacy toward science teaching and scientific attitudes based on different variables (gender, grade level, etc.) and to assert the relationship between self-efficacy and scientific attitude. Method: The general model of the research was a quantitative study, and ninety undergraduate students in the Gifted Education program were voluntarily participated in this study. The data were collected by the use of Scientific Attitude Inventory and the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument. The researcher used an unpaired t-test, analysis of variance and a correlation method to analyze the data. Findings and Results:: The results indicated that there were significantly positive correlations between grade level and scientific attitude and participants' self-efficacy skills for science teaching. In other words, students in higher grade levels show better self-efficacy and scientific attitudes for science teaching than students in lower grades. Additionally, even though the total of self-efficacy points toward science teaching were increased, the outcome expectancy points toward science teaching were not significantly increased. Conclusions and Recommendations: It is concluded that pre-service gifted teachers' scientific attitudes and self-efficacy toward scince teaching affect each other and correlate positively. In this regard, educational settings that provide effective opportunities to positively increase students' both self efficacy beliefs toward science teaching and scientific attitudes should be organized.