This study examined Turkish in-service early childhood education teachers&rsquo / self-reported beliefs and self-reported practices in relation to classroom assessment, to see if there were any relationships among in-service early childhood education teachers&rsquo / philosophies, their self- reported practices, their educational backgrounds, and their professional backgrounds. A survey method was conducted for his study. Participants consisted of in-service early childhood education teachers from early childhood centers serving children 3 to 6 years located in Ankara, Turkey. Questionnaires were applied to 200 teachers in 62 ECE centers from authorized 81 centers, who represents different educational and professional backgrounds. Results revealed that in-service early childhood education teachers&rsquo / beliefs are correlated with their classroom practices. Earned educational degree and year of experience in their professions, and number of teaching staff in the classroom were found to be related to their self-reported beliefs as well as their self-reported classroom practices.

The purpose of this study was to investigate primary school and mathematics teachers&rsquo / efficacy beliefs and perceptions in the context of the new primary mathematics curriculum and identify differences, if any, in teachers&rsquo / efficacy beliefs and perceptions based on their area of certification, gender, experience and number of students in classroom. The sample consisted of 805 teachers, 696 of whom were primary and 105 of whom were mathematics teachers working in elementary schools located in Mersin, Eskisehir, Bolu, Ankara and Istanbul. The questionnaire administered to participants was adapted by the researcher throughout the study. Results of exploratory factor analysis suggested six dimensions: Utility and Impact of the Curriculum, Impact of the Curriculum regarding Efficacy Beliefs, Efficacy Beliefs regarding the New Curriculum, Utilization of Curriculum, Utilization of Special Techniques, and Teachers&rsquo / Sense of Efficacy. The results of the MANOVA analysis indicated that teachers&rsquo / area of certification and experience had a significant role on the collective dependent variables, while number of students and gender did not. Analysis further revealed that primary teachers had significantly stronger efficacy beliefs about the new curriculum than mathematics teachers. Moreover, teachers with 11-15 and 21 and more years of experience were significantly found to perceive a higher utilization of special techniques than teachers with 10 years or less experience. In a similar sense, teachers with 16-20 years of experience were found to have a significant higher perceived utilization of special techniques than teachers with 5 years or less experience.

The main purpose of the study was to investigate pre-service elementary mathematics teachers&rsquo / personal efficacy beliefs and outcome expectancies about using concrete models in teaching mathematics. Data were collected from the pre-service teachers in the middle of the spring semester of 2008-2009. Pre-service teachers were junior students enrolled in elementary mathematics teaching program at a public university. Six instructional sessions based on using concrete models in teaching mathematics were carried out during a three week period. In this study, the researcher was also the teacher of the instruction at the same time. A survey on pre-service mathematics teachers&rsquo / efficacy beliefs about using concrete models was administered to the students before and after the instruction to evaluate the contribution of the instruction on pre-service teachers&rsquo / efficacies. After the instruction, semi-structured interviews were conducted. The present study demonstrated that the instruction based on using concrete models had positive contributions on the pre-service elementary mathematics teachers&rsquo / self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectancies about using concrete models in teaching mathematics. In addition, results revealed that pre-service elementary mathematics teachers had confidence in themselves about using concrete models both as learners and as teachers. Moreover, they believed that using concrete models in teaching mathematics would have positive consequences in teaching process and students&rsquo / learning. However, the interview data indicated that, pre-service teachers had relatively low personal efficacies and outcome expectancies about classroom management, when the concrete models were involved in the instruction.