A Preliminary Study of Pre-Service Biology Teachers’ Self-Efficacy in Environmental Pollution

Abstract

Self-efficacy refers to a person’s belief in his or her capacity to accomplish desired goals. Self-efficacy helps college students to overcome any learning problem, because belief in mastering a situation produces positive effects and is a critical factor in students’ academic performance. This study aimed to assess pre-service biology teachers’ self-efficacy at Universitas Siliwangi in Environmental Pollution course. A survey was conducted on 111 participants. The data were gathered through the use of a questionnaire with 50 statements and then analyzed descriptively. Statistical analysis showed that the participants earned a fair score (69.92) in Magnitude, a fair score in Strength (62.35), and a good score in Generality (72.37). This finding suggests that students are not completely familiar with self-efficacy, and hence that certain dimensions of self-efficacy require training and improvement. As a result, efforts must be made to improve students’ self-efficacy. One of the efforts can be implementing learning strategies or models that can promote students’ self-efficacy in the classroom.