Exploring the Perceptions of Prospective Teachers regarding Self-Efficac y … Exploring the Perceptions of Prospective Teachers regarding Self-Efficacy: A Case Study of University of Turbat Balochistan

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of prospective teachers, who are enrolled in 4-year B.Ed degree program, about their self-efficacy as a teacher in the context of Balochistan and to explore that how the 4-years B.Ed. program has shaped prospective teachers self-efficacy and confidence as teacher to enter in the teaching profession. This study was carried out with a case study design to richly describe the end product for gaining appropriate meaning and understanding According to Merriam (2009) case study provide an in-depth exploration bounded within the system as this study is bounded to a particular program and institute. To collect the data, teachers sense of self efficacy scale (TSSE) developed by Megan Tschannen-Moran and Wolfolk Hoy was used. This questionnaire has been selected because this has been used in many researches to gauge the self-efficacy of prospective teachers and has worked effectively to meet the purpose. Along with questionnaire, semi-structured interview was conducted to understand how B.ED (Hons) had shaped prospective teachers’ self -efficacy. Data wereanalyzed sequentially. Initially, quantitative data were analyzed using the SPSS (Version, 22) software. Later, semi-structured interview data wereanalyzed using thematic analysis.


Introduction
One of the most important debates in educational sciences is the importance of future teachers' beliefs about self-efficacy (Soprano & Yang, 2013) in influencing decision-making regarding their professional development as well as at the school level for the wellbeing of the children in their care. Previous research concerning this area is limited to only content knowledge competencies, for example, mathematics, biology, and science, and computer science. Few researchers have carried out studies on the trainee-teachers' beliefs about selfefficacy (Ekici, 2008;Uysal & Kösemen, 2013). This props up the need to conduct research studies focusing on trainee-teachers' beliefs about self-efficacy. Recent research studies have informed us that certain factors influence self-efficacy beliefs. These factors are learning achievement (Dennis, 2013), anxiety and hope (Kutlu, 2012), epistemological beliefs, and life purposes. For example, a study conducted by Kutlu and Gökdere (2012) revealed a relationship between self-efficacy and attitudes toward the profession of teaching. However, most of these recent studies have focused on exploring the level of the relationships between the variables they investigate. The missing gap in the literature is work on how these relationships are developed amongst stakeholders. In other words, as per my knowledge, no prior study attempted to investigate the topic. Therefore, the current study aims at exploring prospective teachers' perceptions of self-efficacy beliefs and the processes that have helped to develop these efficacy beliefs. In Pakistan, the government is continuously stressing in its policies the quality improvement of teacher education programmes (Government of Pakistan [GoP], 1947;GoP, 1959;GoP, 1972;GoP, 1979;GoP, 1992;GoP, 1998;GoP, 2002;GoP, 2009). The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has initiated some reforms, including the introduction of a new programme and curriculum for ADE and B.Ed. (Hons) with the consultation of USAID and federal and provincial governments in Teacher Education Project (TEP) USAID. TEP, also known as Pre-Step Project, has also conducted a series of workshops for professional development and prepared training manuals for the teacher educators to update their knowledge, competencies, and skills regarding the new implemented curriculum. This was because this new curriculum required teachers who could demonstrate new practises and discard conventional practises in the classroom. It can therefore be comprehended that the purpose of the new programmes was to prepare the trainee-teachers for a more studentcentered approach and use activity-based teaching in the classroom. The underlying assumptions were that prospective teachers can gain adequate insight into the activity-based teaching strategies through proper learning in the teacher education institutes and observation of teacher educators' practises in the classroom. These findings identify the relationships between teacher educators' beliefs and their actual practices, which can be helpful for planners in the spectrum of teacher education to modify their training as per the needs of the teacher educators. In return, the teacher educators may also get benefits in terms of revisiting their teaching practises in the classroom. The current study is conceptualized on the premise that individual teachers' beliefs are powerful indicators of their classroom practices. It is quite clear that the practices of teachers are governed by their beliefs, and these beliefs are often the filters through which instructional practices, judgments, and decisions are made (Cantu, 2001). Exploring the Perceptions of Prospective Teachers regarding Self-Efficacy … [ 123 ] www.irjei.com conducted on teachers' sense of self-efficacy (Zai, 2016), a rare study is available on the selfefficacy of this program's graduates or current enrolled students in the province and nationwide. This program has almost completed a decade of its introduction in the faculties of teacher education institutions. It is important to know how this program is enhancing teachers' self-efficacy, which can ultimately improve the quality of education. This research study has a two-fold aim. First, the aim is to investigate the perceptions of 4years B.Ed. (Hons.) program's prospective teachers about their self-efficacy beliefs in the context of Balochistan. The second aim is to investigate how the learning experiences in B.Ed. Programme contribute to developing the self-efficacy of prospective teachers. The 4 Years B.ED. (Hons) program is running in the departments and faculty of educations in all universities of Baluchistan and preparing teachers to enter the field as professionals. Being a faculty member of the department of education and closely linked with this program, I am interested to know whether this program is enhancing the self-efficacy of pre service teachers or not. I believe that teachers' confidence and self-efficacy help them to be effective teachers, who can provide better quality education. The Government has just introduced the new 4years B.Ed. (Hons.) to make teachers education programs more effective and prepare better teachers to enhance the quality of education in the province. Through this research, we can come to know the perceptions of prospective teachers that how much they are confident to enter in the teaching field to augment the quality of teaching-learning process at the school level. Studying teachers' perceptions helped me to understand how efficacious or confident teachers feel in terms of their potential teaching responsibilities at this stage of the program and what are contributing factors in the development of their efficacy beliefs so that relevant recommendations can be made.

Aim of the Research
This study aimed to investigate the perceptions of a 4-years B.Ed. (Hons) program's prospective teachers' self-efficacy beliefs as a teacher in the context of Balochistan and the contributing factors to developing self-efficacy of 4-years B.Ed. prospective teachers. This study explored how the 4-years B.Ed. (hons.) prospective teachers from the University of Turbat think about their self-efficacy and confidence as a teacher to enter the teaching profession.

Research Methodology
This study was carried out with a case study design to richly describe the end product for gaining appropriate meaning and understanding According to Merriam (2009) case study provide an in-depth exploration bounded within the system as this study is bounded to a particular program and institute. To collect the data, teachers sense of self efficacy scale (TSSE) developed by Megan Tschannen-Moran and Wolfolk Hoy was used. This questionnaire has been selected because this has been used in many researches to gauge the self-efficacy of prospective teachers and has worked effectively to meet the purpose. Along with questionnaire, semi-structured interview was conducted to understand how B.ED (Hons) had shaped prospective teachers' self-efficacy. Data wereanalyzed sequentially. Initially, quantitative data were analyzed using the SPSS (Version, 22) software. Later, semistructured interview data wereanalyzed using thematic analysis.

Results
Prospective teachers' self-efficacy were measured on a 5-point scale, such as N (nothing), VL (very little), SI (slightly influence), QB (quite a bit), and GD (great deal).Frequencies and percentage, as presented in Table 4.4,show the overall perception of prospective teachers about their efficacy to engage students in learning process. Generally, prospective teachers' perceptions are positive. Specifically in item 1, the majority of prospective teachers (41.7%) think that they can easily deal with the difficult students and slightly less percent of teachers (33.3%) are also hopeful to make a significant difference in the classroom with difficult students. However, there is a small group (20.8) of prospective teachers, who feel that they cannot do much to get to the difficult students. This means that most of the teachers feel confident to deal with difficult students in the classroom during the teaching learning process. Interestingly, prospective teachers also feel competent to engage their students in critical thinking and creativity. Item 2 illustrates that around 70% of prospective teachers viewed themselves as good teachers who can engage their students in critical thinking process. The trend about fostering creativity is more positive as more than 80% of prospective teachers in Item 6 expressed that they can foster student creativity. Only a few reported low efficacy for creative engagements. This shows that prospective teachers feels themselves critical and creative, and they know the instructional techniques, which they can use to engage the learners. Taking student engagement to a further level, prospective teachers also feel confident about motivating and instilling positive values about school and learning among students. Especially in the case of motivating students, all prospective teachers view themselves as an

Exploring the Perceptions of Prospective Teachers regarding Self-Efficacy …
[ 125 ] www.irjei.com agent of motivating students ranging from slightly to a great deal. It is important to note that no one feels low efficacy in this regard. Similarly, prospective teachers also view that they can engage their students in ways to help them believe in their capabilities. More than 80% of prospective teachers think that they can help learners 'believe that they can do well in academics. This means, overall prospective teachers feel efficacious to motivate students and engage students to work well. Specifically, when it comes to value learning, prospective teachers' efficacy seems to be spread over. The majority (70%) seems their efficacy to help a pupil to value learning. However, one prospective teacher feels no efficacy in this regard (shown in Graph 1). This is the only item where a prospective teacher has reported no efficacy.

Figure 1: Value Learning
Prospective teachers' efficacy score is mediocre when talking about the students who perform poorly(see item 7) and high self-efficacy in school home connection where teachers feel confident to help families to assist their children. Around 57% of prospective teachers believed in their capabilities to improve the student-learning outcome who are performing low. Whereas, rest of student teachers report low efficacy. In the same vein, prospective teachers exhibited the efficacy of creating a connection with parents to improve studentlearning outcomes. Around 60% of prospective teachers reported their efficacy to create a link with parent, whereas the rest of the prospective teachers are unsure to influence parental support. This means that prospective teachers are confident about their efficacy regarding improving student learning outcomes by assisting parents to support their children at home in their studies.

Overall Discussion on Efficacy in Student Engagement
Generally, teachers seemed to be efficacious in students' engagement. Specifically, prospective teachers believed themselves as critical pedagogue and a source of inspiration for their prospective students. This high level of confidence reflects the curriculum aim which intend to prepare prospective teachers who can bring out inspiration among students and provide them critical feedback so that students can foster their learning. However, the data Exploring the Perceptions of Prospective Teachers regarding Self-Efficacy … [ 126 ] www.irjei.com revealed some anomalies. For instance, many prospective teachers showed efficacy to make students realize for the value of learning but single prospectus teachers reported opposite efficacy. On a broader spectrum, teachers seemed more confident to engage students.

Perceptions of pre service teachers about their Efficacy in Instructional Strategies
Prospective teachers' perceptions about efficacy in instructional strategies are presented in Table 2. Prospective teachers were asked their perceptions about key instructional strategies such as questioning techniques, classroom examples, variety of assessment, and modification in learning strategies. Mostly, prospective teachers' perceptions are in positive category. Prospective teachers perceive themselves as efficient to deal with difficult questions raised by the students. In Item 1, around 65% of prospective teachers reported to having quite a bit and/or a great deal of efficacy while responding to tough question. However, a small percentage (16%) of prospective teachers was not sure whether they can deal with difficult question. The same number of prospective teachers reported that they could not deal with difficult students. A similar trend was also seen when prospective teachers were asked about their efficacy to craft good questions. Around 60% fall in the category of quite a bit and/or great deal in crafting good questions. Whereas, rest of the prospective teachers reported low efficacy. Taking questioning further for gauging students' comprehension, prospective teachers' perceptions about their efficacy showed similar to drafting questions. Around 60% student teachers were confident about measuring students' comprehensions and the rest of the student teachers had low efficacy. Deciding on an instructional strategy in a lesson, which suits the learning need of an individual is important. In this regard, prospective teachers' perception about their efficacy to adjust strategy according to the needs of the individual students is optimistic. Around 75% of the prospective teachers believed that they can adopt a strategy based on students' need. Very similar to this, prospective teachers reported their efficacy in creating challenges for capable students. The percentage trend is very similar to the prior one. This means that student teachers' efficacy in adjusting lessons and developing challenges is almost high. Sometimes, only adjusting instructional strategies do not work. Therefore, alternative strategies are needed in classroom to help learners. In this regard, prospective teachers reported their efficacy is very high. More than 80% of the participants viewed themselves as competent to implement alternative strategies in classroom. Alternative strategies can be implemented as an alternative explanation of a concept that is confusing. Prospective teachers' perception about providing alternative explanations seems high as around 70% of student teachers fall in quite a bit and/or great deal (see Item 6). The rest are in the range of very little and/or slightly influence. So, this indicates that prospective teachers feel competent to bring alternative strategies in classroom that can improve students' learning.
In other words, prospective teachers have efficacy to provide varied instructional experiences for students to help pupil to learn the conceptions differently. The classroom instructional strategies accompany assessment strategies. Prospective teachers perceive themselves as efficient to use variety of assessment strategies as around 60% of them report quite a bit and/or great deal of influence. Around 30% of student teachers reported low efficacy. However, only one student teacher reports no efficacy in this regard. This means that efficacy of student teachers in a variety of assessment strategies varies.

Conclusions and Recommendations
This study investigated prospective teachers' perceptions about their self-efficacy as a teacher and explored their experiences in the B.Ed. Program that contributed to developing their self-efficacy. The results showed that generally the prospective teachers' perceptions are positive in terms of engaging their students in the learning process, engaging their students in critical thinking and creativity, and improving student-learning outcomes by assisting parents to support their children at home. Likewise, the prospective teachers are generally positive in their perceptions about key instructional strategies, including questioning techniques, a variety of assessments, and modification in learning strategies. Furthermore, prospective teachers reported high self-efficacy in managing the classroom, which includes regulating student behaviour and developing classroom rules/routines. The higher level of self-efficacy in prospective teachers is mainly because of the subjects and learning experiences offered in the B.Ed. (Hons) program. However, these experiences can be offered in a more explicit and structured manner. Future implications have been suggested for that, which includes policy-review for explicating the B.Ed. courses and learning