Pre-service early childhood teachers' self-efficacy beliefs towards parent involvement

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the parent involvement self-efficacy beliefs held by pre-service early childhood teachers and their self-reported skills in implementing parent involvement strategies. Another aim was to examine the impact made on parent involvement self-efficacy beliefs by taking a course on parent involvement and by self-reported skills in implementing parent involvement strategies. Data was collected from 601 third and fourth year pre-service early childhood teachers using the adapted version of Assessment of Parent Involvement Efficacy Scale. In order to answer the research questions, descriptive and inferential statistics including a two-way ANOVA between groups were run. The results revealed that the adapted scale is valid and suitable for use in Turkish culture and that pre-service early childhood teachers were found to have high parent involvement self-efficacy beliefs. Moreover, the results showed that taking a course on parent involvement does not have a significant impact on parent involvement self-efficacy beliefs. On the other hand, self-reported skills in implementing parent involvement strategies were found to be a significant factor on parent involvement self-efficacy beliefs in favor of groups that have 'competent' and 'moderately competent' self-reported skills in implementing parent involvement strategies.