A Research on the Relationship Between Academic Self-Efficacy of Prospective Physical Education and Sports Teachers and Their Attitudes Towards the Turkish Education History Course

The purpose of this study is to research the relationship between academic self-efficacy of prospective physical education and sports teachers and their attitudes towards the Turkish Education History course. The study population consisted of 880 prospective teachers who study at the department of physical education and sports at Ege, 9 Eylül, Süleyman Demirel, Mehmet Akif Ersoy, Yozgat Bozok and Erciyes Universities and took the Turkish Education History course and the sample group consisted of 182 individuals who were selected randomly from such population. In the collection of data, the Personal Information Form developed by the researcher, the academic self-efficacy scale developed by Jerusalem and Schwarzer (1981) and adapted to Turkish by Yılmaz et al. (2007), and the attitude scale for the Turkish Education History course developed by Kamer and Şimşek (2016) were used. The data obtained in the study were analyzed in computer environment. Number, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used as descriptive statistical methods to evaluate the data. Pearson’s correlation coefficient was applied to continuous variables of the study. As a result, a positive relationship was found between the academic self-efficacy of prospective physical education teachers and their attitudes towards the Turkish Education History course. It is believed that this is due to the perspectives indicating that transferring this to academic development of prospective teachers who are in a phase of transition to professional life, and to development of new generations in their professional careers is important.


Introduction
Academically developed and successful individuals are one of the main features for the societies to develop and achieve the excellence. It is a fact that education is very important in terms of raising individuals who have the ability to think, process information, make their own decisions and aim at perfection in all areas of life.
Accordingly, the concept of academic self-efficacy is defined as the individual's perception that he can perform an assigned academic task and responsibility at the defined level of success (Donmuş et al., 2017, pp. 1−13). In another definition, Bandura (1977, p. 203) defines self-efficacy as a quality that affects in formation of an individual's behaviors, and "an individual's belief in his or her capacity to produce specific performance attainments". High self-efficacy belief can affect higher cognitive processes and motivation of individuals by setting higher targets for themselves and being consistent in the decisions they make (Locke & Latham, 1990, pp. 212−247). Students with high self-efficacy belief are more eager towards the learning activities, make greater effort, try more against challenges and use more effective strategies in doing so, and show higher performance than students with low self-efficacy belief (Eggen & Kauchak, 1999, p. 403). Brousseau et al. (1988, pp. 33−39) suggested that self-efficacy beliefs of teachers and prospective teachers about their profession and the ideas they form throughout their education life are influenced by teacher training institutions. This is because of the fact that teacher self-efficacy can also be directly related to changing classroom behaviors, being open to new ideas and developing positive attitudes towards teaching (Hamurcu, 2006, pp. 112−122).
Today, sports can serve as a powerful means of education in the solution of social problems, responding to different expectations of people. Sports is an instrument that makes positive contributions to the lives of people and enables their development (Yalçınkaya et al., 1993, pp. 12−26). Yıldırım and Bayrak (2019, pp. 123−144) stated that participation of students in physical activities based on sports also had a positive effect on their academic success.
In a general sense, history is an academic discipline of educational sciences with a dimension of education (providing knowledge, skills and attitudes related to historical content defined by history curriculums) and academic research (identifying the problems and troubles encountered in the history education process in a scientific way, and solving them and bringing concrete suggestions) (Demircioğlu, 2014(Demircioğlu, , pp. 1176(Demircioğlu, −1186. Considering that it is a formation that positively influences the lives of individuals, the importance of historical awareness is obvious (Gökkaya, 2001).
An effective teacher must have two basic qualities, namely personal and professional. The qualities of being tolerant and patient, open-minded, affectionate, understanding and humorous, expecting high achievement from student, and encouraging and supporting the student are the personal traits that an effective teacher must have, while general knowledge, field knowledge, teaching profession knowledge and skills refer to professional qualities (Erden, 1998). Kamer (2013, p. 8), who underline the importance of historical practices of education, stated, "it is necessary to analyze past practices and developments in order to make our education free from negativities and benefit more from the positive results". According to Akyüz (2015, pp. 3−4), understanding the problems of education is important in order to know the development of Turkish educational history in time, contribute to the development of ideas and practices in education, introduce new and valid suggestions, and learn from such historical experience. It is believed that the level of knowledge of education history, which is one of the professional qualities, is very important for a physical education and sports teachers to have a strong professional awareness and embrace his profession, question the current education and training policies and create a public opinion.
As someone who has an important place in the education system, the teacher should be a good observer and guide in line with the purposes of teaching-learning processes in order to provide efficiency in education and develop positive attitudes. Based on this information, it is clear that raising effective physical education and sports teachers with both professional and personal qualities is important in raising healthy and successful generations.

Research Model
The model of this study is descriptive and relational survey. These survey models can be defined as "research models that aim to determine the presence and/or degree of co-variation between two and more variables" (Karasar, 2007, pp. 49−53).

Creation of Volunteer Groups
The study population consisted of 880 prospective teachers who study at the department of physical education and sports at Ege, 9 Eylül, Süleyman Demirel, Mehmet Akif Ersoy, Yozgat Bozok and Erciyes Universities and took the Turkish Education History course and the sample group consisted of 182 individuals who were selected randomly (Çıngı, 1994) from such population.

Data Collection Techniques
The personal information form developed by the researcher, the academic self-efficacy scale and the attitude scale for the Turkish Education History course were used in order to collect data in this study.

Personal Information Form
The form contains five questions designed to obtain information on gender, age, university, place of living and weekly working time of participants.

Academic Self-Efficacy Scale
The scale (Academic Self-Efficacy Scale), which was developed by Jerusalem and Schwarzer (1981, pp. 1−4) to determine academic self-efficacy levels of students, consists of 7 items with one dimension. The items of the scale which is prepared as the 4-point Likert scale are scored as (1) "Doesn't fit me at all", (2) "Fits me a little", (3) "Fits me", and (4) "Fits me exactly". The original scale was developed by applying to medical school students and the scale's Cronbach's alpha value was found to be 0.87.
The scale was adapted to Turkish by Yılmaz et al. (2007, pp. 253−259). Turkish adaptation of the scale was conducted on 672 prospective teachers who were university students from different fields. Based on the analysis jel.ccsenet.org Journal of Education and Learning Vol. 9, No. 4;2020 results, the structure of original scale, which consist of one dimension and 7 items, was retained in the Turkish scale. Analysis results showed that the Cronbach's alpha reliability value is 0.79. This result indicates that the academic self-efficacy scale can be used as a valid and reliable scale to determine the self-efficacy related to academic learning of university students under the conditions in Turkey.

Attitude Scale for Turkish Education History Course
The Attitude Scale for Turkish Education History Course, which was developed by Kamer and Şimşek (2016) in order to determine the attitudes of students studying at the Faculty of Sports Sciences towards the Turkish Education History course, consists of 25 items. The items of the scale, which is prepared as a 5-point scale, are scored as follows: (1) 'Strongly Disagree', (2) 'Disagree', (3) 'Neutral', (4) 'Agree' and (5) 'Strongly Agree'. All of these items are positive and the first four factors in the scale are defined as "Benefit", the second as "Importance", the third as "Interest" and the fourth as "Liking". The first sub-factor had 7 items, the second had 7 items, the third had 5 items, and the fourth had 6 items. The Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was analyzed to test the reliability and homogeneity of the scale, which was found to be 0.91. That the calculated reliability coefficient is 0.70 and higher is generally sufficient for the reliability of test scores.

Statistical Analyses
The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is just one of the methods used to analyze the normality condition. Skewness and kurtosis distributions are shown in Table 2 according to the statistics of the data obtained in the study. The results of Kolmogorov-Smirov test show that the scores that the participants obtained from the academic self-efficacy scale and the attitude scale for the Turkish Education History course and the deviations from the normal are at significant levels ( Based on this information, it was decided to use parametric statistical analysis tests. The data obtained in the study were analyzed in computer environment. Number, percentage, mean and standard deviation were used as descriptive statistical methods to evaluate the data. Pearson's correlation coefficient was applied to continuous variables of the study.   Table 4, a low level of positive relationship was found between the academic self-efficacy of prospective physical education teachers and the sub-dimensions, namely benefit (r = .441, p = .000), interest (r = .192, p = .010), importance (r = .294, p = .000) and liking (r = .370, p = .000) related to the attitude towards the Turkish Education History course, and total score of attitude towards the Turkish Education History course (r = .473, p = .000).

Discussion and Conclusion
Today, university education is a very critical step that will affect individuals throughout their lives in terms of succeeding academically and transferring their achievements to their lives in the future. It is believed that the knowledge and achievements that the prospective teachers gain at this phase will have a positive impact on their professional achievements, provide transfer of knowledge to new generations and thus they are important in raising academically successful generations.
It was found that academic self-efficacy of participant prospective physical education and sports teachers and their attitudes towards the Turkish Education History course under the sub-items of benefit, interest, importance and liking and total attitude towards the Turkish Education History course were above the average (Table 3).
In the literature, Ünlü and Erbaş (2018, pp. 15−25) reported in their study on prospective physical education teachers that their academic self-efficacy levels were at a moderate level. In another study, Şeker (2017, pp. 1465−1484) suggested that academic self-efficacy levels of prospective music teachers were at a moderate level. Differently from these studies, there are studies which report that academic self-efficacy levels of prospective physical education teachers were above the moderate (Alemdağ, Öncü, & Yılmaz, 2014, pp. 23-35), and academic self-efficacy levels of students of school of physical education were high (Ünlü & Kalemoğlu, 2011, pp. 190−203). It is believed that the different results between this study and the results obtained in the literature are due to sample groups, universities of sample groups, and differences in education they receive because of different course characteristics in the curriculum as a result of physical and geographical differences in their provinces.
With respect to the attitudes towards the Turkish Education History course, Bolat (2017) reported that from among 66 different metaphors developed by prospective primary school teachers, the metaphors in the knowledge category were the most common. In their study, Akhan and Altıntaş (2019, pp. 90−100) found that attitudes of prospective teachers towards the Turkish Education History course were at a moderate level and no relationship exists between gender, educational status of parents, family income and GANO variables and their attitudes towards the Turkish Education History course. Ersöz and Arıbaş (2014, pp. 760−767) found that prospective teachers had negative thoughts and attitudes towards the course at the beginning of semester, but their attitudes and thoughts changed to positive after the project-based learning.
In this study, a low level of positive relationship was found between the academic self-efficacy of prospective physical education teachers and total score of attitudes towards the Turkish Education History course under the sub-items of benefit, interest, importance and liking related to the attitude towards the Turkish Education History course (Table 4).
In the study conducted on attitudes of prospective teachers who study at different departments of faculties of education, Altunay-Şam (2007, pp. 1−19) reported that most of students were aware of the importance of history and accepted that it is necessary, but another group thought that it is just about memorizing names and dates, the courses offered in this field are based on rote learning and found history as boring and monotonous and did not like studying history.
Alabaş (2016) found the Turkish Education History course as important in learning the history of Turkish Education System, and also found that the place of scholars/thinkers in the Turkish Education History as the "most important" and the different aspects of raising teachers in the Turkish Education History as in the second place in the learning dimension of the course. In the study conducted by Memduhoğlu and Topsakal (2008, pp. 95−129), they reported that students rather needed lessons to gain professional knowledge and skills. Alabaş (2016, p. 98) stated that the reasons of participants for finding the course important were being informed of the education in the past, taking lessons from mistakes made in the past in the field of education and comprehending the level we have reached in education, the place of scholars/thinkers who contributed to the education in the Turkish Education History, the place of different dimensions of raising teachers in the Turkish Education History, and the place of educational institutions/schools in the Turkish Education History.
Based on this information, it can be interpreted that differences in academic success levels of students with similar features may develop or change depending on their academic self-efficacy. In this study, it is expected that a relationship exists between academic self-efficacy of prospective physical education and sports teachers and their attitudes towards the Turkish Education History course. Positive attitude of students towards the Turkish Education History course is important for being more successful in the course and broaden their horizons thanks to the outcomes they gained from the course, and understanding and adopting the phases that the Turkish Education System has experienced and reached its current level.
As a result, a positive relationship was found between the academic self-efficacy of prospective physical education teachers and their attitudes towards the Turkish Education History course. It is believed that this is due to the perspectives indicating that transferring this to academic development of prospective teachers who are in a phase of transition to professional life, and to development of new generations in their professional careers is important.

Recommendations
• Studies can be conducted to research the academic self-efficacy of prospective physical education and sports teachers and their attitudes towards the Turkish Education History course in sample groups of a larger scale.

•
The attitudes of prospective Physical Education and Sports teachers towards the Turkish Education History course can be studied based on different variables such as gender, age, and doing sports.