An Investigation of the “Literacy Teaching Self-Efficacy” of Primary School Teachers

The purpose of this study is to examine classroom teachers’ self-efficacy perceptions in terms of early literacy teaching. The sample of this descriptive study consisted of 456 classroom teachers working in primary schools in Yenişehir, Toros, Mezitli and Akdeniz districts of Mersin during the 2016-2017 academic year. In the study, “Self-Efficacy Scale for Teaching the basic literacy skills” developed by Özdemir (2015) was used. Results showed that the teachers felt very efficacious about teaching early basic literacy skills. Results indicated significant differences between teachers’ self-efficacy scores for teaching the basic literacy skills and variables such as age, type of school they work in, how many times they instructed first graders, and finding themselves self- efficacious about cursive script. On the other hand, teachers’ self-efficacy scores for teaching the basic lieracy skills did not indicate any differences according to gender, years of experience in profession, faculty of graduation, having a master’s degree, and the school’s socio-economic level.