Physical education teacher's learner autonomy support behaviours and teacher's self-efficacy perceptions

Objective: The aim of this study is to examine physical education and sport teacher's learner autonomy support behaviours and teacher's self-efficacy perceptions in terms of some variables and to show the relation between each other. Method: There are 724 physical education teachers who work in the central districts of Antalya province in 2016-2017 school year and these teachers are the population of this study. Sample of this study includes 393 physical education teachers randomly selected from population. In this study, the Learner Autonomy Support Scale developed by Oguz (2013); "Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale" developed by Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001) and adapted to Turkish by Çapa, Çakıroğlu and Sarıkaya (2005); and "Personal Information Form" were used as data collection tools. To analyze the data, Mann Whitney U test and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test, Kruskal Wallis-H test and Spearman Brown correlation coefficient techniques were used. Confirmatory Factor Analysis in AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structure) was done for the sample group conformity of scales. Results: There is a difference between physical education teachers' finding learner autonomy support behaviours. Female teachers were significantly better than male teachers in the support of emotion and thought sub-domain. Teachers attending in-service course were significantly better than those not to attend. Teachers' opinions on the necessity and demonstration of learner autonomy support behaviours show no statistically significant difference in terms of occupational experience, type of school, teaching stage. While there was statistically significant difference on physical education teachers' teacher self-efficacy perceptions according to type of school, teaching stage, attending in-service courses; there was no statistically significant difference on gender and occupational experience variables. Conclusion: There is a positive significant relationship between the teachers' learner autonomy support behaviours and teacher's self-efficacy. Key words: learner autonomy, teacher self-efficacy, physical education and sports teacher, teacher autonomy support.