Association between pre-service science teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and their confidence in physics content

Molefe, Paul
Rankhumise, Mmushetji Petrus
Mafa-Theledi, Olivia Neo

Journal of Science and Education (JSE)
Vol. 4 No. 2 (2024): Journal of Science and Education (JSE)

This exploratory study examined the relationship between the knowledge of selected physics concepts from the South African National Senior Certificate curriculum and the self-efficacy beliefs of preservice science teachers. Forty-one preservice physical science teachers between the ages of 16 and 30 enrolled in a higher education institution to earn a Bachelor of Education degree made up the participants. Of these, 56.1% were female and 43.9% were male. Every respondent was a recent high school graduate from South Africa enrolled in a second-year university course on basic physical science. The preservice teachers completed the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI-B) and a teaching confidence ranking scale. A confidence ranking for teaching topics from a typical high school science curriculum was determined by analyzing the data. According to the data analysis, preservice teachers are confident and self-sufficient enough to teach science concepts.