Self-Efficacy Beliefs among Palestinian Pre-Service Mathematics Teachers’ in Statistics

Abstract

One of the most concrete reflections of mathematics in real life is statistic domain and it is frequently mentioned in the related literature that students have difficulty in statistics concepts. The development of statistical concept knowledge is important for both statistical and scientific literacy. This study aimed to determine pre-service mathematics teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in statistics. The study is about the Palestinian context.  Any data about the Palestinian education is valuable as there is so little research in the literature about the educational research done about Palestinian educational system. The present study was conducted with a total number of 100 pre-service mathematics teachers who were in their last academic year in the mathematics department of two Palestinian universities. Data was collected by the Statistics Self- Efficacy Belief Instrument. Descriptive statistics was used in data analysis. Data analysis showed that the participants had low to moderate level of self-efficacy beliefs in statistics. The difficulties faced by the pre-services mathematics teachers with low self-efficacy beliefs in the teaching of statistics concepts are discussed and the suggestion of remedial solutions for teaching content and teaching environment is shared.

Keywords

• statistics education,teacher training,self-efficacy

Matematik Öğretmen Adaylarının İstatistik Öz-Yeterlik İnançlarının İncelenmesi: Filistin Örneği

Öz

Matematiğin gerçek yaşamdaki en somut yansımalarından biri de istatistik alanıdır ve ilgili literatürde öğrencilerin ve matematik öğretmen adaylarının istatistik kavramlarını anlamada zorlandıkları sıkça dile getirilmektedir. İstatistik kavram bilgisinin geliştirilmesi hem istatistik hem de bilim okuryazarlığının geliştirilmesi açısından önem arz etmektedir.  Bu çalışma, matematik öğretmen adaylarının istatistik öz-yeterlik inançlarını belirlemeyi amaçlamıştır. Çalışma Filistin bağlamı ile ilgilidir. Filistin eğitimine ilişkin herhangi bir veri, literatürde Filistin eğitim sistemi hakkında yapılan eğitim araştırması hakkında çok az araştırma olduğu için özel bir önem taşımaktadır. Bu çalışma, son akademik yılında Filistin devlet sınırları içerisinde bulunan iki ayrı üniversitesinin matematik bölümünde kayıtlı olan toplam 100 matematik öğretmen adayı ile gerçekleştirilmiştir. Veriler İstatistik Öz-Yeterlik İnanç Envanteri tarafından toplanmıştır. Veri analizinde tanımlayıcı istatistikler kullanılmıştır. Veri analizi, katılımcıların istatistikte düşük düzeyle orta düzey arası öz-yeterlik inançlarına sahip olduklarını göstermiştir. Makalede, düşük öz-yeterlik inancına sahip öğretmen adaylarının istatistik kavramlarının öğretiminde karşılaştıkları zorluklar tartışılmakta, öğretim içeriği ve öğretim çevresine yönelik çözüm önerileri paylaşılmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• istatistik eğitimi,öğretmen eğitimi,öz-yeterlik

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