An investigation of the 21st century skills self-efficacy andgeneral qualifications of the teaching profession of students inthe Physical Education and Sports Teaching Department

The aim of this study was to examine physical education and sport teaching students' general competencies for teaching profession and 21st century skills self-efficacy perceptions. For this purpose, research data were collected from students studying in the physical education and sports teaching departments of Amasya University, 19 Mayıs University, Selçuk University and Bingöl University. The sample of the study consisted of 366 volunteer students, 155 of whom were female and 211 of whom were male. The personal information form created by the researcher to obtain information about the socio- demographic characteristics of the students, the "Teaching Profession General Competence Scale" developed by Koçyiğit, Erdem, and Eğmir (2020), and the "21st Century Skills Scale" developed by Anagün, Atalay, Kılıç, and Yaşar (2016) were used to collect the data. Descriptive statistics were used to obtain information about the socio- demographic characteristics of physical education and sports teaching students. The data related to the variables of gender, membership in a club or community, and desire to pursue postgraduate education were analyzed by independent samples T Test; the data related to the variables of grade, high school type, mother's education level, father's education level, income level, level of effective use of information and communication technologies analyzed by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). According to the results of the study, physical education and sports teaching students' perceptions of teaching profession competencies were found to be adequate and their 21st century skills self-efficacy was found to be high. While there was no significant difference in students' perceptions of general efficacy for teaching profession and 21st century skills self-efficacy according to gender, high school type, father's education level, income level, membership in a club or community, and desire to receive postgraduate education, there was a significant difference according to class level, effective use of information and communication technologies variable. In addition, a positive and high level relationship was found between students' general efficacy perceptions of teaching profession and 21st century skills self-efficacy perceptions. Key words: Physical education, Teaching profession, 21st century skills