A Survey Study of the Effects of Preschool Teachers’ Beliefs and Self-Efficacy towards Mathematics Education and Their  Demographic Features on 48 - 60-Month-Old Preschool Children’s Mathematic Skills

Perihan Tuğba Şeker; Fatma Alisinanoğlu

doi:10.4236/ce.2015.63040

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Creative Education > Vol.6 No.3, March 2015

A Survey Study of the Effects of Preschool Teachers’ Beliefs and Self-Efficacy towards Mathematics Education and Their Demographic Features on 48 - 60-Month-Old Preschool Children’s Mathematic Skills ()

Perihan Tuğba Şeker¹, Fatma Alisinanoğlu²

¹Department of Early Childhood Education Department, Education Faculty, Usak University, Usak, Turkey.
²Department of Child Development, Gelisim University, Istanbul, Turkey.

DOI: 10.4236/ce.2015.63040 PDF HTML XML 3,786 Downloads 4,636 Views Citations

Abstract

This research has been performed for examination of affect on belief and self efficacy of preschool teachers about mathematics education on the math skills of 48 - 60 months old children. Three separate data collection tools were used in the study. The study population is 48 - 60 months children who attend to an independent National Education Ministry nursery school of Ankara Province, Cankaya Town in 2012-2013 education year. The study aimed to reach all of the population. In the research, “The General Information Form”, “The Belief Survey”, “TEMA-3 Early Mathematics Ability Test” and “The Self-Efficacy of Scale Pre-School Teachers for Mathematics Education” were used in order to get information about children and their families. “Beliefs Survey”, was developed by Platas (2008) and adapted by Seker (2013), “TEMA 3 Test of Early Mathematics Ability”, developed by Ginsburg and Barody and adapted by Seker in 2013 and “Self-efficacy Scale of Preschool Teachers towards Mathematics Education” which developed by Seker (2013), were used in the study. It was determined that the level of the self-efficacy of the preschool teachers was high in both dimensions in the study. The total point of the teachers from the Beliefs Survey has a positive and high-level relationship with the appropriate age, occupational development and teacher sub-dimensions in mathematics education. However, the total point is in a negative and high-level relationship (–0.918) with teacher points in terms of focus of knowledge. After the analysis of math skills of 48 - 60 months children, it was determined that respectively the level of teachers’ beliefs were significantly predicted by age ranges of children, mothers’ education level, previously attend pre-school education institution status, gender, father’s education level, teachers’ level of education, teachers working period in the institution and mothers’ working status for the math skills of children.

Keywords

Pre-School Education, Early Mathematics Education, Pre-School Teacher, Self-Efficacy, Belief, Demographic Features

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Şeker, P. and Alisinanoğlu, F. (2015) A Survey Study of the Effects of Preschool Teachers’ Beliefs and Self-Efficacy towards Mathematics Education and Their Demographic Features on 48 - 60-Month-Old Preschool Children’s Mathematic Skills. Creative Education, 6, 405-414. doi: 10.4236/ce.2015.63040.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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