An investigation of the differences in perceived self-efficacy and pedagogical beliefs of pre-service english teachers from different universities

There have been a serious number of researches carried out on teacher efficacy and training qualified teachers both in Turkey and around the world considering the importance of effective teacher in education. Teachers? self-efficacy beliefs are a research area that attracts the attention of education researchers as it is a factor that has a positive impact on classroom management and student achievement. When the teacher efficacy is investigated, we do not just examine the cognitive skills and behaviours. Beliefs lie under the source of every behaviour. The beliefs mentioned in this study are pedagogical beliefs. The research made on teachers? beliefs is very important to understand the teachers? learning and teaching processes and management strategies. Considering the importance to investigate the teachers? beliefs to understand the reason behind the classroom practices and the value ascribed to the sense of teacher efficacy that has a considerable impact on student achievement, EFL/ESL teachers? pedagogical beliefs and their efficacy levels need to be examined. Given the importance of teacher efficacy and beliefs in the development of an effective language learning in ELT classrooms, this study investigates the levels of self-efficacy in teaching English and pedagogical beliefs of student teachers of English in two universities in Ankara and the differences of those beliefs related to student teachers? gender, the university at which they are trained as language teachers, the type of high school they attended, whether they had English preparatory classes at university and their ranking of this department and university in order of preference in the university entrance exam. Results reveal that student teachers of English have high level of self-efficacy belief in teaching English and the pedagogical knowledge belief level of student EFL teachers is high. Some personal demographics indicate significant relationships considering the factors of the scales. Gender, high school, university English preparatory education and the ranking of the university in the university entrance exam do not have an effect on student EFL teachers? self-efficacy beliefs. However, university affects their self-efficacy beliefs related to classroom management. Considering pedagogical knowledge beliefs, gender and high school do not affect student EFL teachers? pedagogical beliefs. However, university, English preparatory education and the ranking of the university in the university entrance exam have an effect on their pedagogical beliefs.