Determination of classroom teachers' self-efficacy beliefs and views on education for sustainable development

For sustainable development, education can provide both the discovery of new visions and concepts, critical thinking that is needed for the development of new methods and tools and greater awareness. Today, increasing and changing environmental problems come at a point where educators are increasingly responsible for raising individuals who have adopted a sustainable lifestyle in society. In this context, it is inevitable that the topic of "education for Sustainable Development" will start to take part in discussions about education strategies. In our country, it is observed that there is no comprehensive study for determining the self-efficacy beliefs of classroom teachers in eucation for Sustainable Development, and that studies for teacher candidates are insufficient. This situation leads to the need to work on the subject. In this study, the intertwined research method, in which quantitative and qualitative methods are used together, was used to determine the self-efficacy beliefs of classroom teachers for Education for Sustainable Development. The quantitative part of the research was conducted with 277 classroom teachers working in Bingöl province in the 2018-2019 academic year. The qualitative dimension of the research was carried out with 56 classroom teachers working in the province of Bingol. The self-efficacy scale and interview form were applied for 4 weeks for the teachers who participated in this study. The quantitative data of the study were collected by the self-efficacy faith scale for Education for Sustainable Development. The qualitative data of the research was collected by the interview form for the teachers. In the study, the SPSS 22 package program was used in quantitative analysis of data. In this study, the results obtained by using the independent sample t test were evaluated according to gender variable and the results obtained by using variance analysis were evaluated according to graduation status, place of employment and seniority year. The analysis of the data showed that there was no significant difference between classroom teachers ' beliefs in self-efficacy for Education for Sustainable Development based on gender and the region in which they served. It was determined that there was a significant difference in favor of associate degree graduates according to the graduation status variable and in favor of teachers with seniority of 11-15 years according to the seniority year variable. In the analysis of qualitative data, the interview form applied to the teachers was evaluated by content analysis. As a result of the analysis of qualitative data, it was observed that the majority of teachers argued that education was necessary for Sustainable Development, that education should be started from pre-school period, that modern methods and techniques should be used during education and that education should last for a lifetime. According to the results of this study, some suggestions have been made.