İngiliz dili eğitimi öğretmen adaylarının Epistemolojik inançları ve öğretmen yeterliği inançları arasındaki ilişki

The study describes the epistemological beliefs, the teacher-efficacy beliefs and therelationship between these beliefs held by a group of English language teaching (ELT) trainees atdifferent universities. Four hundred and fifty six English as a Foreign Language (EFL) pre-serviceteachers from different universities participated in the study. Schommer?s Epistemological BeliefsQuestionnaire (Schommer, 1990) and the Teacher Efficacy Scale (Woolfolk & Hoy, 1990) wereused to identify the beliefs about knowledge and learning and teacher-efficacy beliefs. A pilotstudy was conducted in order to validate the reliability of the instruments.The results of this study revealed that when the epistemological beliefs are taken intoconsideration, EFL pre-service teachers are not sure whether knowledge is certain and acquiredfrom the authority or not. On the other hand, EFL pre-service teachers believe that learning abilityis quick and fixed at birth. Statistically significant relationship was found between gender, year atschool and teacher-efficacy. However, there was not a significant relation between gender, age,year at school and their personal epistemology. When the teacher-efficacy beliefs are examined,EFL pre-service teachers appear to perceive themselves not ready for teaching profession. TheEFL pre-service teachers? sense of efficacy and personal epistemology were found to effect theirperceptions either positively or negatively.The findings of this study may give insights to ELT Departments in terms of maintainingand/or improving cognition and efficacy supportive environment for pre-service teachers tobecome active practitioners in their learning and teaching process.Key words: Epistemological beliefs, Teacher-efficacy, Teacher training