Investigation of pre-school teachers perceptions of self-efficiency for mathematics education in terms of some variables

Preschool period includes the period in which the child is the fastest in terms of mental, social, emotional, physical and language development, which constitutes the first step of all periods of human life. The experiences acquired by the child in the pre-school period form the basis of his/her future life. The content and quality of mathematics activities given to children in pre-school education institutions are significantly affected by teachers' perceptions of thought and self-efficacy on the subject. In this study, it was aimed to determine to what extent the variables of age, gender, professional experience, seniority and school status predicted the self-efficacy of teachers working in pre-school education institutions. The research was carried out in accordance with the scanning model. Survey models are a research method that aims to describe a past or present situation as it is. In the 2021-2022 academic year, in all official independent kindergartens affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in the province of Istanbul, Silivri, kindergartens within the scope of primary / secondary school / high school, and practice kindergartens affiliated to girls' vocational high schools; Participation of pre-school teachers working in kindergartens of private schools and private pre-school education institutions was ensured. In the study, "Preschool Teachers' Self-Efficacy Scale for Mathematics Education" developed by Şeker (2013) was used in order to determine pre-service teachers' self-efficacy perceptions towards mathematics education. There are a total of 36 items in the scale, and the items are graded on a 5-point Likert scale. The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS 24.0 (Statistical package for social sciences) statistical package program. As a result of the frequency distributions and percentage values of the answers obtained from the preschool teachers within the framework of the sub-problems of the research, it was concluded that the teachers' self-efficacy perceptions towards mathematics education differed according to the variables of age, gender, professional experience and school type, but did not show significant differences according to the educational status variable.