Does science literacy affect self-efficacy in science teaching? An analysis with structural equation modelling

Abstract

It is well known that, for all civilizations' good and successful future, science and people with scientific skills have a key role. So, at the center of scientific skills, teaching science is an important topic. Maybe two of important components of science teaching are scientific literacy and self-efficacy. So, it has to be known if there is a correlation between them. The main aim of the study is to research correlation between self-efficacy beliefs towards science teaching and the level for science literacy of primary school teachers. For this aim data were collected with two instruments (basic science literacy test and the self-efficacy belief in science teaching scale) and gained data was analyzed with SEM (structural equation modelling). The sample of the study consist 506 primary school teachers. After data collection the theoretical model was tested that does science literacy affect or not the self-efficacy in science teaching with SEM. After data analysis it was found that the self-efficacy belief in science teaching affected positively and significantly by the science literacy levels. Considering that teachers with high self-efficacy in teaching science have more successful outcomes, it is believed that it would be beneficial to organize in-service training in which teachers can make a deep sense of their self-efficacy beliefs, literacy concepts and make self-evaluations.