The effect of mathematics self-efficacy on numeracy skills of prospective elementary school teachers

Abstract

Numeracy skills are the abilities to manage data and numbers to solve problems in various contexts of everyday life. However, numeracy skills of prospective elementary school teachers have not been satisfactory. One of the factors that influence numeracy skills is self-efficacy. Therefore, this study aims to investigate to what extent is the effect of self-efficacy on numeracy skills of prospective elementary school teachers. The type of this study was correlational research. In addition, the research population was prospective teachers in universities throughout Surabaya with a minimum accreditation of B for the bachelor’s programme of elementary school teacher education. Furthermore, the samples were selected using proportional cluster random sampling, resulting in 293 prospective teachers or college students from the bachelor’s programme of elementary school teacher education. Apart from that, the research instruments consisted of a numeration test and a self-efficacy questionnaire developed in a standardised manner. In addition, the applied analysis was a simple linear regression test with r-product moment. The results showed that (1) there was a positive relationship between self-efficacy and numeracy skills of prospective elementary school teachers and (2) the effect of self-efficacy on numeracy was 20.1%. This indicated that 20.1% of the contribution to numeration skills of prospective elementary school teachers is influenced by self-efficacy, while the remaining 79.9% is influenced by other factors not examined in this study. This study provides information on the characteristics and patterns of the relationship between self-efficacy and numeracy skills of elementary school teachers.

Keywords: Self-efficacy, numeracy skills, prospective elementary school.