Study of self-efficacy levels of social studies teachers in the field of environmental education

In order for teachers of social studies to be able to conduct a productive environmental education process, they need to be confident that they are competent; that is, it is required that they have high perceptions of self-efficacy towards environmental education. The goal of this research is to examine teachers of social studies environmental education self-efficacy levels through different parameters. In this research where descriptive method is used, the population is teachers of social studies who are assigned to work in public schools Adapazarı, Erenler, Serdivan, Akyazı and Hendek in Sakarya under the jurisdiction of The Ministry of National Education of Turkish Republic. The sample of the research consists of 82 teachers of social studies whom reached out in this context. ''Environmental Education Self-Efficacy Scale'' that is developed by Özlü, Özer Keskin and Gül (2013) is used as a tool for collecting data. There are 2 main subdivision and 24 points; which are scale 1. subdivision with 10 questions of field competence and 2. subdivision with 14 questions of teaching strategies. During the analysing phases of the research, IBM SPSS Statistics 24 stock computer programme has been used. Since the variables were not distributed normally, Mann Whitney U-test and Kraskal Wallis H-test have been used during the analysis, as they were more suitable for these sets of data. According to results, self-efficacy levels of social studies teachers' in aspects of environmental education are determined to be high. It is stated that there was statistically no significant distinction among teachers in terms of gender, their university major, age or seniority levels. It is submitted as a recommendation that, through various exercises, perception level of teachers with low perception could be raised. Keywords: Geography, Environmental Education,Self-Efficacy,Social Studies, Teachers of Social Studies