The relationship between teaching science subjects and self-efficacy of pre-service secondary school teachers at Makerere University.

Abstract

The reduced performance of science subjects by students at secondary school level has been one of the challenges to the government, teachers, parents and the general public. This has aroused various questions seeking to get possible solution. It has been found that one of the reasons for he failures in science subject is the nature of the teachers who have been models to instill confidence, self-ability, and esteem to students. As part of the greater approaches seeking solutions, this study was carried out to examine the relationship between science teaching and self- efficacy by pre-service teachers at Makerere University with recourse to the observational learning theory. Three specific objectives guided the study and these include to; find out the relationship between gender and teaching self-efficacy; find out the relationship between prior academic achievement and teaching self-efficacy; and to find out the relationship between subject of specialization and teaching self-efficacy of science pre-service secondary school teachers. a correlational study design was used and a sample of 200 participants were used in this case. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect the data, and the Pearson Correlation used to analyze the data, having entered into the Social Package for the Social Scientist. Results show that there is a relationship between gender, prior academic achievement and subject of specialization with teachers’ self-efficacy although not significant. The study concludes by emphasizing the use of observational learning theory at different levels if the self-efficacy is to transcend to its order up to students of secondary schools. the main recommendation of the study was to make the university of Makerere university a conducive environment for teaching-learning so that lecturers can become better of self-efficacy to teachers.