Development of science teaching self efficacy beliefs scale for preservice science teachers: Validity and reliability study

The aim of this research was to develop a valid and reliable scale to measure science teaching self-efficacy beliefs of prospective science teachers with respect to new special teacher efficacies published by MEB. Research was conducted during 2018-2019 academic year spring semester, with a total of 394 preservice science teachers from several to state universities. The study group, which was based on accessible sampling, was applied in 9 universities including 3 universities in the Aegean region, 2 universities in the Central Anatolia region, 2 universities in the Marmara region, 1 university in the Southeastern Anatolia region and 1 university in the Western Black Sea region. In the research, the data were collected according to the information about descriptive and relational scanning method which is a quantitative research method. In the development process; item pool, expert opinion, comprehensive and construct validity, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, reliability analyzes were performed. According to the exploratory factor analysis the scale consisted of seven components and it was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. The components were named as "Subject Knowledge", "Planning and Organizing the Learning-Teaching Process", "Scientific, Technological and Social Development", "Collaboration with School, Family and Society", "Adaptation of Teaching Environment", "View and Evaluate Student Development "," Professional Development". Factors of Cronbach alpha reliability are .87, .87, .84, .85, .76, .75 and .73. The overall reliability value of the scale is .95. AMOS as confirmatory factor analysis. According to AMOS analysis results, CMIN / DF = 1.840, CFI = 0.905, GFI = 0.857, TLI = 0.896 and RMSEA = 0.046. These results indicate that the scale has proper statistical measures and can be used in other researches. In addition, it can be said that the prospective science teachers have a high level of self-efficacy belief level.