Exploring the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs when teaching science and engineering

Abstract

The belief that pre-service science teachers can effectively instruct science has been the subject of substantial research. However, a lack of research exists to examine the relationship between pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and their capacity to teach science and engineering. To fill this void in the literature, it is necessary to investigate the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs in engineering and science education. To address this knowledge deficit, this research investigated the relationship between pre-service science teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in science instruction and their engineering teaching self-efficacy beliefs. The data were obtained from 224 pre-service science teachers using a quantitative approach. The study results indicated that pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in science teaching were higher than in engineering teaching. The correlation analysis revealed a strong and significant correlation between self-efficacy beliefs in science and engineering teaching. The regression analysis also showed a significant relationship between self-efficacy beliefs in science and engineering. In addition, the results also revealed that science-teaching self-efficacy beliefs explained 52% of the variation in participants’ engineering-teaching self-efficacy beliefs. Future research recommendations are derived from the results.