Sense of Efficacy and Learning Beliefs of Pre-service EFL Teachers

The study describes the sense of efficacy and learning beliefs and the relationship between these beliefs held by a group of pre-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers at different universities in Turkey. The results of this study revealed that when the beliefs about knowledge and learning are taken into consideration, pre-service EFL teachers could not decide whether knowledge is certain and acquired from the authority or not. On the other hand, pre-service EFL teachers believe that learning ability is fixed at birth. A statistically significant relationship was found between gender, year at school and sense of efficacy beliefs. However, there was no significant relationship between gender, age, year at school and their personal beliefs about knowledge and learning. When the sense of efficacy beliefs are examined, pre-service EFL teachers appear to be not ready for the teaching profession. Sense of efficacy and learning beliefs of the pre-service EFL teachers were found to affect their perceptions of acquiring knowledge and performing teaching practices.