PERSONAL BIOLOGY TEACHING EFFICACY BELIEFS AND BIOLOGY TEACHING OUTCOME EXPECTANCY OF IN-SERVICE ELEMENTARY TEACHERS

The role of the teacher is of great importance in learning and his beliefs affect effectiveness of teaching in every cognitive object. This paper deals with the personal selfefficacy beliefs and the outcome expectancy of in-service teachers teaching biological concepts in Primary School. The study was conducted with 509 in-service elementary teachers and the bio-STEBI-A, which is an adaptation of STEBI-A, was used as the data collection instrument. The results of our survey indicated that in-service elementary teachers scored moderate self-efficacy and their personal self-efficacy beliefs were found to be greater than their outcome expectancy. Recommendations are made for future research.


Introduction
Teachers play a very important role in the educational process and their beliefs and especially their self-efficacy beliefs affect the way they teach, the choice of their instructional practices and the learning outcomes (Fives & Buehl, 2012;Gibson & Dembo, 1984). Regarding Science, Cox and Carpenter (1989) emphasize the importance of selfefficacy beliefs in shaping attitudes. This thesis is shared by Akgün, Keskin, and Byrne (2009) who report that negative attitude towards science causes low self-efficacy in teachers. As a result, teachers with low self-efficacy adopt the teacher-cantered teaching model, are critical of the students, focus on external motivations, find it difficult to set goals for their students (Brownell & Pajares, 1999;Mojavezi & Tamiz, 2012), and do not In this term, Gibson and Dembo (1984) developed the "Teacher Efficacy Scale" (TES), the use of which is more common than any other instrument for measuring selfefficacy, and which is based on Rotter's theory (1966) and especially on Bandura theory (1977). Initially, it consisted of thirty (30) statements which were then limited to sixteen (16), graded on the Likert scale and measures the two dimensions of self-efficacy, personal teaching efficacy, (PTE,9 statements) associated with Bandura's personal selfefficacy scale and general teaching efficacy (GTE, 7 statements) associated with Bandura's outcome expectancy scale.
Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001) created a multidimensional scale, the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy-TSES, to measure three (3) parameters of the learning process: teaching strategies, classroom management, and student engagement. This instrument is based on Bandura's theory (1977) and is presented in two forms. One consists of 24 statements and the other is shorter, which consists of 12 statements. Dellingerer et al. (2008) also construct the TEBS-Self instrument (Teachers 'Efficacy Beliefs System -Self), which assesses teachers' self-efficacy related to effective teaching and learning in their class. It consists of thirty (30) statements, which are answered on a four-grade scale. Bandura (1997) also created an instrument for measuring teachers' self-efficacy. This includes seven (7) subscales and 30 statements on a ninth grade scale.
Focusing on Science, Baldwin, Ebert-May and Burns (1999) created the Biology Self-Efficacy Scale, which measured pre-service teachers' self-efficacy in understanding and using Biology in their lives. Smolleck Zembal-Saul and Yoder (2006) developed the Teaching Science as Inquiry (TSI) instrument, which is based on the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000), measures personal self-efficacy and expected outcomes for elementary teachers and emphasizes inquiry-based learning. Riggs and Enochs (1990) constructed "The Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument" (STEBI-A for in-service elementary teachers and STEBI B for pre-service elementary teachers, which is based on the Gibson and Dembo instrument (1984) and has been used in numerous studies that measure teachers' self-efficacy in Science. It consists of two subscales: a) Personal Science Teaching Efficacy (PSTE), and b) Science Teaching Outcome Expectancy (STOE). The STEBI-A, which regards in-service elementary teachers, includes twenty-five (25) items of which thirteen (13) measure the PSTE, and twelve (12) measure (STOE). Initially, this instrument was used to measure self-efficacy of elementary teachers in science and later it was modified and adapted to measure other school subjects.
Furthermore, in Asia, other instruments for measuring self-efficacy have been developed by researchers. Shum and Cheng (1997) measured the self-efficacy of femaleleader teachers, Yeung and Watkins (2000) measured personal self-efficacy, and Kennedy and Hui (2006) developed the Chinese version of Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSE).

Literature Review
The literature review did not reveal a significant number of recent studies investigating teachers' self-efficacy in teaching biological concepts. In fact, most of the studies focus on  Aurah & McConnell, 2014, Aydin & Boz, 2010Bayraktar 2011;Bergman & Μorphew, 2015;Bursal, 2012;Gray, 2017;Hechter, 2011;Norris, Morris & Lummis, 2018). Specifically, Avery and Meyer (2012) refer that the inquiry-based science courses correlate positively with pre-service teachers' science self-efficacy. Aurah and McConnell (2014) and Bursal (2012) found that gender does not affect self-efficacy beliefs and Aurah and McConnell (2014), who compared the differences in self-efficacy beliefs between preservice teachers in the United States and Kenya, referred that students from the USA scored higher than students from Kenya in PSTE, while students from Kenya scored higher in STOE. Aydin and Boz (2010) investigated pre-service teachers' self-efficacy in Turkey and found that self-efficacy beliefs of pre-service teachers are generally high for both subscales and graduate students had higher PSTE and STOE than other students. In addition, Hechter (2010) reported that the number of postgraduate courses students had attended affects PSTE but not STOE. Bergman & Μorphew (2015) indicated that preservice teachers had high PSTE and moderate to high STOE. Similarly, there is a wide range of studies regarding in-service teachers' selfefficacy in teaching Science, which has used the STEBI-A instrument. Evans (2012) Gosselin et al. (2010) and Ulmer et al. (2013) reported that Teachers Professional Development (TPD) courses increase in-service teachers self-efficacy, and Lakshmanan et al. (2010) found that this kind of courses improved in-service teachers PSTE but not STOE. Also, Lumpe et al. (2012) reported that TPD courses improve PSTE, men had more positive beliefs about Science than women and hours of attending TPD courses were an important predictor of learning achievement. Additionally, Albion and Spence (2013) refer mediate science self-efficacy in elementary teachers in Australia and McKinnon, Jase Moussa-Inaty and Barza (2014) indicated that in-service teachers had low science selfefficacy and teachers, who had between one and three years of experience had the highest PSTE. Moreover, Yenice (2009) found that there were no differences in gender, age, training received by teachers but there were differences as far as seniority was concerned. Despite the growing rates of applying studies in teachers' self-efficacy in Science, there are a small number of studies that measure pre-service or in-service elementary teachers' self-efficacy in teaching biological concepts. In this regard, Mavrikaki and Athanasiou (2011) found that the self-efficacy of in-service elementary teachers increased with teaching experience, additional studies were not related to self-efficacy, teachers who taught upper grade had higher self-efficacy, those who had attended science orientation in High School have higher self-efficacy than those who had attended humanity orientation and the number of Biology or Science courses they had attended in their basic studies was positively related to their self-efficacy in science teaching. Respectively, Angle and Moseley (2009) investigated the self-efficacy of Biology teachers in the Secondary School and reported that no correlation was recorded between self-efficacy and years of experience and Biology orientation teachers had the same scores on personal self-efficacy beliefs as non-Biology orientation teachers, while Biology orientation teachers had higher scores on outcomes expectancy.
Regarding the research, which was conducted with pre-service teachers, Savran and Cakiroglou (2001) reported no differences regarding gender and the attendance of previous courses on Biology and Gercek et al., (2006) found that students showed high self-efficacy and there were no differences in their self-efficacy in relation to age, gender, academic achievement while there were differences in self-efficacy in relation to the Biology lessons that the students had attended.
Also, the results of the Çimen et al., (2011) research showed that students' selfefficacy beliefs about Environmental Education were high and improved as the level of study of Biology students improved and Ekici, Fettahlıoğlu and Çıbık (2012), who investigated students' self-efficacy beliefs from two Biology departments, indicated that the university had a low impact on student self-efficacy and none on the year of study, while students' self-efficacy beliefs were moderate and students' self-efficacy beliefs in the Biology department for education were higher than those of the Biology department students. Moreover, Saribas, Teksoz and Ertepinar (2014) found that students' selfefficacy beliefs related to environmental education and environmental knowledge are both moderate. Also, Ateş and Saylan (2015) found that students' academic self-efficacy and academic motivation were high and the university affects academic self-efficacy and academic motivation and Yilmaz, Gunes and Katigcioglu (2016) reported that students have high levels of self-efficacy and academic self-efficacy. Furthermore, Posnanski (2002) investigated the effect of a TPD course on biological concepts. The results reported that PSTE increased statistically as opposed to STOE.

Research Aim
The present study attempted to investigate Greek in-service elementary teachers' efficacy beliefs regarding teaching biological concepts. For this reason, we adapted STEBI-A developed by Enochs and Riggs (1990) in Greek content and constructed the bio-STEBI-A instrument.

Procedure and Sample
The present study was conducted during the academic year 2019-2020 and the participation in the study was voluntary. The instrument's final version was created with Google Forms and the participants were informed about the purpose of the study and that anonymity would be maintained.

Instrument
We adapted the "The Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument" (STEBI-A) (Riggs, & Enochs, 1990) to measure in-service elementary teachers' self-efficacy in teaching biological concepts. This instrument was selected because a) it was constructed to measure the self-efficacy of in-service elementary teachers in science and b) it is a highly valid and reliable instrument. In our survey, data were collected using a questionnaire. The first section of our instrument included items regarding teachers' general characteristics (e.g. group of age, gender, years of teaching experience, and special studies in Biology, etc). The second section consisted of the 13 statements of Personal Biology Teaching Efficacy Belief Scale (PBTE) of bio-STEBI-A and third section consisted of the 12 items of Biology Teaching Outcome Expectancy Scale (BTOE) of bio-STEBI-A. All items were scored on a Likert scale, ranging from 1= strongly disagree to 5= strongly agree. We replaced the word "science" with the word "biological contents" in order for the exact meaning to be conveyed. Initially, the pilot questionnaire was delivered to 40 advanced elementary teachers, asking them to complete it and comment on the comprehension of the statements and identify possible fuzziness in their formulation. These teachers were excluded from the final sample. The online pilot questionnaire was answered by 36 teachers during the period 1/4/20 to 10/4/20. Statistical analysis showed that there was a low correlation between some statements of both subscales. Specifically, in the statements of the first sub-scale, concerning the beliefs of personal self-efficacy in teaching biological concepts, the statements PBTE_2 and PBTE_8 showed a low correlation and in the statements of the second sub-scale, which concerned the outcome expectancy, the statements BTOE_10, BTOE_14, BTOE_20 and BTOE_25 showed a low correlation, too. These statements have been formulated again. Also, some statements were modified in terms of their wording after the comments of the participants in the pilot research.

Results
The data were analysed using SPSS software. Regarding the distribution of teachers' responses in most items both for the Personal Biology Teaching Efficacy beliefs (PBTE) and for the Biology Teaching Outcome Expectancy beliefs (BTOE), the participants mainly took a neutral position. Table 2 shows the responses' distribution of teachers (N=509) who participated in our survey.
Regarding the first sub-scale (PBTE) as shown in Table 2, and as far as the positively worded statements are concerned, the majority of the participants (sum of agree and strongly agree) (72.3%) answered that they encourage students to ask questions and a high percentage of participants (57%) answered that they are constantly trying to find more effective ways to teach biological concepts. Respectively, a significant percentage (53.6%) agreed that they are typically able to answer their students' questions about biological concepts and 46.7% of them answered that they understand biological concepts well enough to be effective in teaching them in Primary Education. On the same subscale and with regard to the negatively stated statements, the majority (sum of disagree and absolute disagree) (60.3%) answered that they disagree that they are confused about how to help their students understand biological concepts when they have difficulty understanding them, and more than half (51.7%) of them answered that they disagree that they do not know what to do, to turn their students towards biological concepts. Moreover, a high percentage of the participants (45.6%) disagreed that they have difficulties in explaining to the students how the experiments related to biological concepts work, while 43.4% would invite the principal to evaluate their teaching of biological concepts.
In the second subscale (BTOE), the majority (84.1%) believed that students' insufficient knowledge of biological concepts can be improved by effective teaching. A significant percentage (75.6%) answered that when the level of students' understanding of biological concepts is improved, it is because the teacher finds an effective teaching method. Almost half of them (48.7%) agreed that students' poor performance in biological concepts is probably due to ineffective teaching and 47.5% answered that students' performance in biological concepts is related to the teacher's effectiveness in teaching biological concepts. Respectively, in the negatively worded statements, half of the participants (49.8%) disagreed with the statement that the effectiveness in teaching biological concepts does not affect the performance of students with low motivation to learn and about half of them (49.3%) disagreed with the statement that teachers cannot help some students to understand biological concepts no matter how well they teach them. Moreover, a significant percentage (38.3%) disagreed with the statement that increased effort in biological concepts teaching produces little change in some students' biological concepts achievements and 30.1% disagreed with the statement that the low performance of some students in biological concepts is not the fault of the teachers.

Discussion
The goal of this study was to present Personal Biology Teaching Efficacy Beliefs and Biology Teaching Outcome Expectancy of Greek in-service elementary teachers. Because the literature review drew a minimal number of surveys related to in-service elementary teachers' self-efficacy in teaching biological concepts in this article, the comparison was made with surveys investigating pre-service elementary teachers' self-efficacy, too. According to our findings, Greek in-service elementary teachers scored moderate selfefficacy. This data led to the conclusion that the Greek in-service elementary teachers have little doubt regarding their ability to teach biological concepts and their ability to affect students' achievements. Our findings are in accordance with the results of the Mavrikaki and Athanasiou research, in Greek in-service elementary teachers. These researchers measured in-service elementary teachers' self-efficacy in terms of personal self-efficacy beliefs and found that Greek primary school self-efficacy in biology teaching is moderate to high. Additionally, our findings agree with the results of research on pre-service elementary teachers of Ekici, Fettahlıoğlu and Çıbık (2012), who found that self-efficacy beliefs of the students studying in the Department of Biology Teaching and Department of Biology, are at the middle level and also with the results of the research Saribas, Teksoz and Ertepinar (2014), who found that students' self-efficacy beliefs related to environmental education and environmental knowledge are both moderate.

Implications and Limitations
The present study contributes to the existing literature by providing preliminary data regarding the instrument bio-STEBI-A, which measure in-service elementary teachers' self-efficacy beliefs in teaching biological concepts. The results of our research raise questions about the factors that affect teachers' self-efficacy. Bandura (1997) mentions as important factors that shape self-efficacy the mastery experiences, which relate to the experiences of the individual; the vicarious experiences, which are affected by role models; the verbal persuasion, which can take the form of positive feedback from the supervisor or colleagues; and the physiological and affective states, regarding an individual's perception of his own physiological and emotional situations. Hence, to improve the self-efficacy of teachers, the above sources could be utilized through appropriately designed teacher professional development courses.
Given that teachers' self-efficacy beliefs influence (Gibson & Dembo, 1984;Guskey, 1988) their teaching behaviour and affect the motivation and achievement of students (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk-Hoy, 2001), there is an urgent need to create professional development courses, which will boost knowledge skills and attitudes that improve teachers' self-efficacy in teaching biological concepts. These courses should evaluate the self-efficacy of the participants at the beginning and at the end of the courses to record if there was an improvement. Posnanski (2002) reported that personal self-efficacy beliefs increased after the participation of elementary in-service teachers in teachers' professional development courses regarding biological concepts. In addition, the results of these courses can also help teachers clarify their beliefs, think about their attitudes and practices, and subsequently modify their behaviour.
Concluding, it is important to note that the results of the present study should be interpreted in the light of some limitations. The results cannot be generalized due to the convenience sampling which was adopted and the lack of previous research in in-service elementary teachers in teaching the biological concepts. However, further research needs to be carried out to confirm our findings.
Future research can use quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate teachers' self-efficacy in teaching biological concepts and the effect of personal characteristics of teachers and the school environment on the self-efficacy of teachers in the teaching of biological concepts.