Examination of Occupational Anxiety Levels and Academic Self-efficacy of Physical Education Teacher Candidates

This study aims at determining the occupational anxiety level of pre-service physical education teachers according to variables, and revealing the correlation between occupational anxiety and academic self-efficacy. Study group consists of 586 pre-service teachers from 10 different universities in Turkey. Data is collected by “Occupational Anxiety Scale for Pre-Service Teachers (OAS)” and “Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (ASES)”. T-test and One-Way ANOVA are used for data analysis, and Levene test is conducted for variance equality. Confidence interval is .95. For gender variables, the results reveal that women’s occupational anxiety is significantly higher than men’s in the dimensions of OAS “total occupational anxiety”, “socio-economic anxiety” and “school management anxiety” (p<.05). According to grade levels, there is significant differentiation in the dimension of OAS “total occupational anxiety”, “job-oriented anxiety”, “socio-economic anxiety”, “interaction with students’ anxiety”, “colleagues and students’ parents anxiety” (p<.05). For variables of participation in socio-cultural and sportive activities and in “socio-economic” dimension, the participants, who never participate in any activities, have significantly higher level of occupational anxiety than those who regularly participate in activities (p<.05). There is also a negative correlation between OAS and ASES (p<.01).