Assessing early childhood education teachers' creative self-efficacy and self-autonomy for art education

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of early childhood education teachers' creative self-efficacy and self-autonomy perceptions on their perceptions of art education in their classrooms. The sample of this quantitative study consisted of 185 preschool teachers working in independent preschools. The participants were invited to participate in the study by hand-delivering the questionnaires to the independent preschools in Istanbul. Teachers' demographic characteristics were analyzed in terms of gender, seniority, marital status, socioeconomic status, education level, high school type, having an art certificate, attending an art-related course, and receiving an art-related training in in-service training. The data were collected using the Teacher Autonomy Scale, the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale, and the Attitudes Towards Art Education scale,. Based on correlation analysis, independent samples t-test and analysis of variance There is a significant relationship between art education perspectives and self-autonomy perceptions of teachers who have attended art courses and have art certificates. In addition, a significant relationship was found between high school types and their views on art education and autonomy skills. The bivariate correlation analysis demonstrate that there is a significant relationship between the significance role of art for teachers with art certificates.