Pre-service early childhood teachers' beliefs concerning parent involvement: the predictive impact of their general self-efficacy beliefs and perceived barriers

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate pre-service early childhood teachers' beliefs regarding their competency in implementing parent involvement strategies as well as examining the predictive impact of variables on these implementations, namely general self-efficacy beliefs and parent involvement barrier perceptions. Data were collected from 601 third and fourth-year pre-service early childhood teachers using adapted versions of the General Self-Efficacy Scale, Assessment of Parent Involvement Efficacy Scale, and Parent Involvement Barrier Scale. Descriptive and inferential statistics including multiple regression analysis were employed. Although pre-service early childhood teachers were, in general, found to believe in themselves at a moderate level, they were highly confident in the parent involvement activities despite having high perceived barriers to parent involvement. Moreover, even though competency in beliefs regarding overall abilities were found to be significant predictor of parent involvement related competency, there was no significant correlation between parent involvement self-efficacy beliefs and perceived barriers to parent involvement.