The relationships among prospective teachers’ teacher efficacy with their levels of academic motivation, academic procrastination, and anxiety about the Public Personnel Selection Examination (PPSE)

DOI: 10.31704/ijocis.2020.003 The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships among the prospective teachers’ teacher efficacy and their level of academic motivation, anxiety of PPSE academic procrastination levels. The research was designed as correlational survey method. The sample of the research was composed of 187 prospective teachers. According to the results of the study, there was a low and positive correlation between teacher efficacy and academic procrastination behaviors and also moderate and positive correlation with academic motivation levels of the prospective teachers. In addition, teacher candidates' academic procrastination behaviors, academic motivations and PPSE concerns explained 22% of the teacher efficacy of candidates. Article History: Received Revised Accepted Online 11 March 2020 27 March 2020 5 June 2020 8 June 2020


Introduction
In the 21 st century, it is seen that the world is changing rapidly in many areas. Undoubtedly, this transformation also deeply affects education systems. Therefore, education institutions need to be able to adapt themselves to this century. The fact that learning standards are effective in contemporary societies increases the importance of effective education. Within this changing order, education and the concepts it includes also differ from those of the previous century, and an attempt is being made to adapt them to this change and transformation (Darling-Hammond, 2006).
Increasing quality in education environments depends to a large extent on effective teachers who can bring students and meaningful learning activities together, create a definite routine in their classrooms and succeed in establishing positive teacher-student relationships (Rimm-Kaufman & Hamre, 2010). İpek & Demirel (2012) stated that the quality of the education given to prospective teachers is not enough to train good teachers on its own, and that in addition to the knowledge, skills and technical equipment provided, developing their skills for grappling with difficulties and their belief that they can succeed in the tasks given to them are also required. For this reason, acquisition of these skills by teachers during their preservice training is very important for modern-day education.
While Bandura (1977) was explaining the concept of efficacy, he spoke of a belief which enables individuals to display a high level of performance in line with their competences and which affects their ideas, feelings, motivation and behaviors. Moreover, Bandura separated the concept of efficacy into two, as outcome expectation and self-competence/self-efficacy. Outcome expectation represents people's expectations related to the outcomes of behaviors displayed towards a task, while selfcompetence/self-efficacy is defined as individuals' beliefs in their skills and competences for overcoming difficulties that they may encounter in order to achieve the desired result in a subject (Bandura, 1977, cited in Baloğlu & Karadağ, 2008Schriver & Czerniak, 1999). Similarly, the definition of "competence" is accepted as a combination of knowledge, skills and behaviors used to increase performance or being able to perform a sufficiently qualified and assigned task (Nessipbayeva, 2012). Therefore, the concept of competence is primarily a process that will take place internally about the person himself, and then expresses the work done by the person and the resulting behaviors that will affect others.
The concept of efficacy has been associated with cognitive and affective domains in connection with definitions, and the researches have been conducted to provide a more qualified educational environment. It has been determined that teachers with high efficacy levels are more successful and have greater job satisfaction, whereas those with low levels are more stressed and insecure (Nathaniel, Sandilos, Pendergast & Mankin, 2016). When the literature is examined, it is seen that there are studies that support this situation (Malinen & Savolainen, 2016;Perera, Granziera & McIlveen, 2018). Teachers with a high perception of self-efficacy are people who are open to new ideas, are willing to try new teaching methods, are less critical towards students who make mistakes, are more willing with regard to teaching, respond to students' needs, are inclined to create warm learning environments, are more persistent and resolute in the face of students' learning difficulties and when encountering any problem, and conduct student-centered lessons (Henson, 2001;Tschannen-Moran & Hoy 2001). High self-efficacy belief causes teachers to be less critical when students make mistakes, work for a longer period with students who have difficulty, and be less likely to send problem students for special education (Saracaloğlu, Certel, Varol & Bahadır, 2012;Saracaloğlu, Yenice & Özden, 2013). Similarly, Moalosi (2013) stated that high teacher self-efficacy shows that teachers perform better in their jobs, they do their jobs more organized, they are more patient with students who try to learn and they spend more time designing new teaching activities. When examining according to lesson variable, Saracaloğlu and Yenice (2009) stated that high levels of self-efficacy belief in science teachers play a big role in development of both the students they teach and themselves.
In other words, it is stated that high competency leads to more effort and permanence, which brings not only better performance in teaching but also more competence. Teachers with low selfefficacy perception, however, are people who have pessimistic views related to student motivation, depend on strict classroom rules, resort to punishment, conduct teacher-centered lessons, and conduct their lessons by reading from course books (Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). This emerges as an undesired situation in education and training environments. Indeed, Bandura (2010) also emphasises that people with low self-efficacy show a tendency to amplify potential problems and threats and dwell on their shortcomings. Some teachers' beliefs that their students will succeed are high and others have low expectations, they do not take responsibility for their students who are academically unsuccessful and do not give up the authority of teachers, as a sign of low teacher selfefficacy (Schriver & Czerniak, 1999). Therefore, it is necessary to determine teachers' levels of efficacy during their preservice training and to provide training towards this. Schunk (1991) discussed the connection between teacher efficacy and academic motivation and argued that teachers with low teacher efficacy did not demonstrate the belief and effort needed to carry out the activities required for students' development, and that, contrary to this, teachers with high teacher efficacy made great efforts for their students and prepared extra material and activities for students with learning difficulties (Ashton & Webb, 1986), and that this also had an effect on their students' academic motivation. Accordingly, the behaviors displayed by teachers with high efficacy levels increase students' academic motivation, and as a result of this, as in the outcome expectation mentioned by Bandura (1977), they also increase teachers' levels of efficacy.
Motivation, which can be described as an important component of teacher efficacy, is defined as being energized to do something, those willing to do this and to actively participate are described as driven or motivated, and those who are unwilling are defined as motiveless or unmotivated (Ryan & Deci, 2000). The term academic motivation, however, is used to express the motivation that students show towards academic subjects or activities. When the literature is examined, it is seen that there are many studies that examine the relationship between academic motivation and achievement (An, 2015;Bailey & Philips, 2016;Calp & Bacanlı, 2016). Moreover, the literature also includes studies that reveal a positive relationship between teacher efficacy and academic motivation (Kim & Cho, 2014;Rodriguez, Blas, Valle, Piñeiro & Cerezo, 2014;Saracaloğlu, Kumral & Kanmaz, 2009).
Another concept mentioned in this research, defined as the students' failure to fulfill their duties and responsibilities in an academic environment, is academic procrastination. Steel (2007) reported that students' postponement, for various reasons, of the tasks they are required to carry out is defined as academic procrastination and that the negative results caused by this are steadily increasing globally. There are a number of reasons for academic procrastination. Meta-analysis studies (Kim & Seo, 2015;Van Eerde, 2003) carried out in relation to this reveal a negative relationship of academic procrastination with self-efficacy, academic motivation and academic achievement, while they indicate a positive relationship with the concepts of fear of failure, avoidance and perfectionism. Howell and Watson (2007) stated that students whose cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies are low have high levels of academic procrastination.
Because, prospective teachers have to achieve before teaching in state institutions Public Personnel Selection Examination (PPSE/KPSS in Turkish) can be considered as one of the key variables in this study. This exam, which is centrally located for undergraduate third and fourth grade students, seems to have negative effects on psychology of many students and cause exam anxiety (Karataş & Güleş, 2013;Sezgin & Duran, 2011). Although anxiety is generally perceived as negative thoughts, possible threats or worries about our fears, it is not a bad situation to always be experienced. As one of the affective factors affecting learning, moderate anxiety can help provide motivation; Low and high anxiety levels are known to bring along some problems. For example, the number of participants in a large-scale study, prepared for the university entrance exam in Turkey trait anxiety levels of students, has been shown to be higher than the anxiety levels of patients will have surgery (Ümmet & Otrar, 2015). In the literature, besides the studies determining anxiety levels related to PPSE (Çetin, 2013;Ümmet & Otrar, 2015); PPSE exam anxiety and teaching profession attitude (Okçu & Halil, 2009); studies examining different variables such as burnout and PPSE anxiety levels (Köse, Diken & Gül, 2017;Yavuz & Akdeniz, 2019) were found. However, there is no study examining PPSE exam anxiety, academic motivation and academic procrastination behavior, which is thought to affect teacher efficacy which is directly related to prospective professional lives.
The aim of this study is to examine the relationship of preservice teachers' teacher efficacy with their levels of academic motivation, anxiety about the PPSE and academic procrastination. Conducting studies such as these is important for determining the factors affecting teachers' efficacy during their preservice training and for carrying out the necessary relevant interventions. In line with this, answers were sought to the following questions: 4. What are the variables that significantly predict preservice teachers' levels of teacher efficacy?

Research Design
In the research, the correlational survey model, which is one of the qualitative research designs and determines the relationships between two or more variables (Karasar, 2009), was used. The correlational survey model was used because the relationship of preservice teachers' teacher efficacy with their levels of academic procrastination, anxiety towards the PPSE exam and academic motivation are examined in this study.

Study Group
The participants in this study were determined with convenience sampling, which is one of the purposive sampling methods. Convenience sampling is related to easier inclusion in the research process of groups to be examined or easier access to these groups, and thanks to this, makes the process faster and more practicable for the researcher (Ekiz, 2015;Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2013). The study group of the research consists of 187 preservice teachers studying in the third and fourth grades of the Art Teaching, Primary School Teaching and Social Sciences Teaching programs at the Education Faculty of Adnan Menderes University, Aydın. 58% of the participants of the research were female, and 42% were male. Moreover, 84 (45%) of the participants were in the third grade, and 103 (55%) were in the fourth grade. According to the programs that prospective teachers study, it is seen that 83 of them are in Social Studies Education, 54 of them are in Classroom Education, and 50 of them are in Art Education.

Data Collection Instruments
In the research, the data were collected with four data collection tools in addition to the personal information form developed to collect the participants' information such as age, gender, department and grade levels.
Personal Information Form: This was created by the researchers to obtain information such as participants' gender, age, class level, and departments.
Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale: This scale was developed by Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk-Hoy (2001) to determine teachers' levels of efficacy, and was adapted for Turkish language and culture by Baloğlu & Karadağ (2008). While the adaptation study was being made, the following procedures were carried out: examination of validity of English-Turkish translation, validity of language and meaning of Turkish form, linguistic equivalence between English and Turkish forms, content validity, item total and item-rest correlations, item discrimination characteristics, structural validity, internal consistency, Guttman split-half and Spearman-Brown reliability methods, correlations between subscales and testretest reliability. As a result of these procedures, it was seen that the scale was suitable for Turkish language and culture. The scale is a 5-point Likert-type scale consisting of 24 items and 5 subdimensions. A Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient of 0.80 was found for the scale. In the present study, the internal consistency coefficient of the scale was determined to be 0.93.
Academic Motivation Scale: This scale was developed by Bozanoğlu (2004) to determine secondary school students' levels of academic motivation. For determining the reliability of the scale, a testretest, in which 101 students took part, was used, and correlation between the two applications was revealed to be .87. Moreover, the internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach's alpha) calculated as proof of reliability were found to range from .77 to .85 at different times and from .77 to .86 in different groups. The scale consists of three sub-dimensions and 20 questions of the 5-point Likert type. In the current study, the internal consistency coefficient of the scale was found to be 0.87.
Academic Procrastination Scale: Developed by Çakıcı (2003) to reveal the academic procrastination behaviours of students, this scale consists of 19 items of the 5-point Likert type and two subdimensions. Since Çakıcı stated that the scale could also be used as a single dimension, it was used as a one-dimensional scale in this study. A Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient of 0.92 was found for the scale in Çakıcı's study. In this study, however, the internal consistency coefficient was calculated as 0.83.
Scale of Anxiety about the Public Personnel Selection Examination: This scale was created by Karaçanta (2009) with the aim of assessing exam anxiety levels of preservice teachers who are to enter PPSE. The scale is made up of 4 sub-dimensions, namely general anxiety, concerns about how you see yourself and how others see you, concerns about the future and concerns about exam preparation, and a total of 19 items of the 5-point Likert type. The results of the exploratory factor analysis that was made reveal that the scale is a valid data collection tool. A Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient of 0.88 was found for the scale. In this study, however, the internal consistency coefficient was determined to be 0.81.

Data Collection Process
The research data were gathered by the researchers during the spring term of the 2016-2017 academic year. The scales used in the research were distributed in written form to volunteer students and the forms given were filled in about 10-15 minutes. The gathered data were coded for analysis on the SPSS program by the researchers.

Data Analysis
The data collected from the participants were coded electronically by the researchers and the data were analyzed through a package program. The research data were answered by 203 participants. However, when the data were checked, it was seen that 10 participants left the scales halfway or encoded sloppily. In addition, since the answers of 6 participants were at extreme values, these 16 participants were removed from the data set. In the analysis, it was checked whether the data was normally distributed to determine whether parametric tests would be applied. Normality assumptions were checked by looking at the ratio of kurtosis and skewness values to error values, and the values were found to range between -1.00 and +1.00. Mahalanobis distance coefficient and scatter diagram were examined to examine the multiple normality of the data. The Mahalanobis distance value coefficient of the variables was determined to be a maximum of 13.551 and it was found that multiple normality was provided. In addition, when looking at the VIF values of the independent variables to check whether there are multiple connections, it was seen that the values were between 1.017 and 1.052 and the tolerance values (CI) were not higher than 15. Finally, Durbin Watson coefficient was examined to examine autocorrelation between variables.
The Durbin Watson coefficient was found to be 2.00 and this value was found to be between 1.5-2.5, which is shown as the threshold value by Field (2005). After controlling the assumptions required for the analysis, the relationship between pre-service teachers' teacher competence, academic motivation, academic procrastination and PPSE anxiety levels and gender and grade level variables were tested by independent groups t-test, and the relation of these variables with the program registered was one-way variance analysis. In addition, in order to determine the relationship between the dependent variables, Pearson correlation analysis and multiple regression analyzes related to predicting teacher efficacies of pre-service teachers together with independent variables were made and presented in the findings.

Findings
In this section of the study, the findings obtained by analyzing collected data in order to analyze the sub-problems of the research were presented.

Prospective Teachers' Levels of Teacher Efficacy, Academic Motivation, Academic Procrastination and PPSE Anxiety
In order to answer the first research question of the study, the average scores of teacher efficacy, academic education, academic procrastination and PPSE anxiety levels of prospective teachers are presented in Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4. When Table 1 is examined, it is seen that the prospective teachers' levels of academic motivation (X{ =3.15) and teacher efficacy (X{ =3.73) were high, while their levels of PPSE anxiety (X{ =2.79) and academic procrastination (X{ =2.98) were close to moderate. When the sub dimensions of the prospective teachers' teacher efficacy in Table 2 are examined, it is seen that the motivation sub dimension has the highest mean value (XK =3.80), while the measurement and evaluation sub-dimension has the lowest mean value (XK =3.67).  Table 3 shows the scores obtained by the prospective teachers in the sub dimensions of the PPSE anxiety scale. It can be seen that the highest levels of anxiety were in the sub dimension related to concerns about the future (XK =3.36), while the lowest were in the general anxiety sub-dimension (XK =2.55). The scores obtained by the preservice teachers in the sub-dimensions of the academic motivation scale can be seen in Table 4. The highest mean score was obtained in the discovery sub-dimension (XK =3.36) related to discovering new things, while the lowest mean score was obtained in the subdimension related to using knowledge (XK = 2.55).

Findings Related to the Gender Variable
To determine whether or not the independent variable of gender of the participants had an effect on their academic procrastination, academic motivation, PPSE anxiety and teacher efficacy, analysis was performed with t-test for independent variables.  Examination of Table 5 reveals the independent groups t-test results for scores obtained by the prospective teachers from the measurement instruments according to the gender variable. Accordingly, it is seen that there was no significant difference in the preservice teachers' scores for academic procrastination, academic motivation, PPSE anxiety or teacher efficacy according to the gender variable.

Findings Related to the Class Level Variable
To determine whether or not the independent variable of class level of the participants had an effect on their academic procrastination, academic motivation, PPSE anxiety and teacher efficacy, analysis was performed with t-test for independent variables.  Table 6 shows the t-test results for scores obtained by the prospective teachers from the measurement instruments according to the class level variable. Accordingly, while no statistically significant difference was observed in the prospective teachers' levels of academic procrastination, PPSE anxiety or teacher efficacy, a significant difference was found in levels of academic motivation in favor of 4 th grade students (t= -2.203, p=0.029). Therefore, to see in which sub-dimensions of the academic motivation scale there was a difference, t-test was carried out, and the results are shown in Table 7 below. It can be seen in Table 7 that while no statistically significant difference was found in the using knowledge sub-dimension of the academic motivation scale according to the preservice teachers' class levels, statistically significant differences were observed in the sub-dimensions of challenging oneself (t=-2.216, p=0.036) and discovery (t=-2.146, p=0.033).

Findings Related to the Department Variable
To determine whether or not the independent variable of department attended by the participants had an effect on their academic procrastination, academic motivation, PPSE anxiety and teacher efficacy, analysis was performed with one-way analysis of variance. In Table 8, one-way analysis of variance results obtained by the prospective teachers from the measurement instruments according to the department they attended are shown. When the table is examined, it is seen that according to the variable of department attended, there was no statistically significant difference in the prospective teachers' levels of academic procrastination (F=0.202, p= 0.818), academic motivation (F=1.614, p= 0.202), PPSE anxiety (F=1.131, p=0.325) or teacher efficacy (F=0.462, p=0.631) according to the type of program they were registered on.

Findings Related to the Relationships between Participants' Levels of Academic Motivation, Academic Procrastination, Teacher Efficacy and PPSE Anxiety
The results of the Pearson correlation analysis that was performed to determine the relationships among the dependent variables of the research are presented below in Table 9.  Table 9 shows the relationships between the prospective teachers' levels of academic procrastination, academic motivation, PPSE anxiety and teacher efficacy. Accordingly, a weak negative relationship of the preservice teachers' academic motivation (R=-0.20, p=0.007) and teacher efficacy (R=-0.19, p=0.008) with their levels of academic procrastination can be seen. This shows that as the preservice teachers' levels of academic procrastination increased, their academic motivation and teacher efficacy decreased, and that the contrary was also true. Moreover, a moderate positive relationship (R=0.46, p=0) can also be observed between the prospective teachers' levels of academic motivation and teacher efficacy.

Variables Predicting the Prospective Teachers' Levels of Teacher Efficacy
The results of multiple regression analysis on variables predicting teacher competence levels of prospective teachers are presented in Table 10. The results of the multiple regression analysis show that the created model is not valid as a whole (F(3,183)=17.966; p<0.001) and that the independent variables accounted for 22% (R2=0.22) of the total explained variance for teacher efficacy. When the parameters of the multiple regression model are examined, the standardized regression coefficients (β) show that the order of importance of the predictive variables on academic self-efficacy was academic motivation (β=0.447; t= 6.720; p<0.01), PPSE anxiety (β=-0.047; t= -0.713; p<0.05), and academic procrastination (β=-0.100; t= -1.495; p>0.5). Taking all the variables into consideration, it is revealed that academic motivation and PPSE anxiety were each significant predictors of teacher efficacy, whereas academic procrastination was not a significant predictor. Moreover, in the multiple regression analysis, it was determined that all the B values for the independent variables remained within the 95% confidence interval.

Discussion, Conclusion and Implications
As a result of the study that was carried out, it was determined that while the prospective teachers' mean scores for levels of academic motivation and teacher efficacy were high, their mean scores for academic procrastination and PPSE anxiety were at a more moderate level. Furthermore, when the sub-dimensions of the preservice teachers' efficacies were examined, it was revealed that the highest score was in the motivation sub-dimension, while the lowest score was in the measurement and evaluation sub-dimension. The fact that pre-service teachers have a high level of academic motivation, motivation and efficacy in the current study is a desirable finding because it indicates clues about the development of affective characteristics related to teaching in general.
According to a similar studies conducted by (İpek & Demirel, 2012;Özaydınlık, 2018) it was also seen that preservice teachers' perceptions of teacher efficacy were at high levels. Again, the results of İpek and Demirel's (2012) study support the finding that perception of self-efficacy scored high. In the study made by Vural and Gündüz (2019), it was also found that prospective teachers displayed academic procrastination behaviors at a "moderate" level. In this context, the related studies support each other.
In terms of gender variable, there was no significant difference between pre-service teachers according to academic procrastination, academic motivation, PPSE anxiety and teacher efficacy scale scores. In other words, female and male prospective teachers have similar scores in this study and gender is not a determining variable. Gündoğdu, Çimen and Turan (2008) determined that gender did not make a significant difference in the researches that prospective teachers examined PPSE anxieties. On the other hand, different results draw attention according to the results of the study in the related literature. For example in some studies, male prospective teachers (Balkıs & Duru, 2009;Demir & Ferrari, 2009;Dinçer & Gerceker, 2018;Gökdere & Çakır, 2015;Uzun Özer, Demir & Ferrari ,2009;Vural & Gündüz, 2019); In some studies, it is remarkable that females have higher academic procrastination level (Mişe & Hançer, 2019;Özer & Ferrari, 2011). However, similar to the current study, Cikrikci & Erzen (2016) did not find a significant difference in the meta-analysis study, where they examined whether gender was a determining factor in academic procrastination. With regard to academic motivation level, it was also stated in a study by Şahin and Çakar (2011) that while no significant difference was found in preservice teachers' levels of academic motivation according to gender, there was a statistically significant difference between the prospective teachers according to the departments they attended. Similarly, it was stated in Demir and Arı's (2013) study that while a significant difference was not found in preservice teachers' levels of academic motivation according to gender, a statistically significant difference was determined between the prospective teachers in terms of the departments they attended. On the other hand, in Gerçeker and Şeker's study (2013) conducted with prospective teachers in a music teaching department, in the subdimensions of academic motivation, a significant difference was found in favour of the using knowledge subdimension, in parallel with the present study. Aktaş (2017), in his study with the students of the Faculty of Theology, revealed that gender did not make a significant difference in the academic motivation levels of students. Studies on this aspect correspond with the results of the relevant study.
In a study on the subject of PPSE anxiety level made by Karaçanta and Koç (2015), it was concluded that with regard to PPSE anxiety, the gender variable was a positive predictor of PPSE anxiety, and that anxiety level in males was correlationally lower than anxiety level in females. Similarly, in a study on the subject of anxiety carried out with a different scale by Köse, Diken and Gül (2017) with preservice biology teachers, it was concluded that there was a difference in anxiety levels according to gender. With regard to academic procrastination behavior, in Bulut's (2014) master's thesis study carried out with prospective teachers in social sciences, statistically significant differences were found in the preservice teachers' academic procrastination behaviour according to gender and class level. Similarly, in the study conducted by Gerçeker and Şeker (2013) with prospective teachers in the art teaching and music teaching departments of fine arts, significant differences were found with regard to gender, department and class level. Wu and Fan (2017) stated that academic procrastination behavior is related to academic motivation, and procrastination behavior increases as motivation decreases. However, when the class level variable is examined, there is no significant difference between academic procrastination, PPSE anxiety and teacher efficacy levels, there is a significant difference in the levels of academic motivation in terms of self-transcendence and discovery. This means that, as the grade level progresses, prospective teachers feel closer to the teaching profession and thus they are more motivated academically. Terzi, Ünal and Gürbüz (2012) found that academic motivation levels of 4th grade students are higher than that of 2nd grade students. Similarly, Terzi, Uyangör and Dülker (2017) found a significant difference in favor of students studying in the last year in the academic motivation levels of graduate prospective teachers who received training in their studies. On the other hand, there is no significant difference in some sub-dimensions (irresponsibility, negative perception of teachers, and academic perfectionism) in the study of Bulut and Ocak (2017) in terms of academic procrastination levels of pre-service teachers; however, it was revealed that there was a significant difference between the third and fourth grades and the first grades in favor of the third and fourth grades in one dimension (perceived quality of the academic task). In some studies, contrary to the findings obtained in this research, it was observed that the motivation of prospective teachers decreased as the grade levels increased compared to previous years (Eymur & Geban, 2011;Gürşimşek, 2002;Uyulgan & Akkuzu, 2014).
It has been determined that there is no significant difference on academic procrastination, academic motivation, PPSE anxiety and teaching efficacy within the framework of the department variable in which pre-service teachers are registered. Similar to academic motivation, Terzi, Uyangör & Dülker (2017); Vural & Gündüz (2019) regarding academic procrastination; The study results of Yılmaz and Yaşar (2016), Altun Altun, Avcı, Özüpekçe and Gümüş (2017) regarding PPSE anxiety are consistent with the study at hand. In addition, it was observed that prospective teachers ' efficacy levels were examined within the framework of various variables, and similar results were achieved in similar studies. In Tuluk's (2014) study, significant differences in teacher efficacy were found according to different departments. Similarly, in Demirtaş, Cömert and Özer's (2011) study, using a different scale, findings related to determination of self-efficacy indicated significant differences in some subdimensions of the scale according to gender and department.
A weak negative correlation of the preservice teachers' levels of teacher efficacy with their levels of academic motivation and academic procrastination were seen in the study. Accordingly, when the prospective teachers' levels of academic procrastination increased, their levels of academic motivation and teacher efficacy decreased. Moreover, a moderate positive relationship was observed between the prospective teachers' levels of academic motivation and teacher efficacy. The level of teacher efficacy increased as the level of academic motivation increased. Similarly, Saracaloğlu and Dinçer (2009) revealed a moderate relationship between prospective teachers' level of efficacy and academic motivation. Saracaloğlu, Kumral and Kanmaz (2009) revealed that there was a positive and significant relationship between the prospective teachers' perceptions of professional competence and their academic motivation. Alemdağ, Öncü and Yılmaz, (2014) stated the positive effect of academic motivation on academic self-efficacy in a similar study conducted with prospective physical education teachers.
When the extent to which the preservice teachers' levels of teacher efficacy were predicted by the independent variables of academic motivation, PPSE anxiety and academic procrastination was examined, it was seen that they accounted for 22% of the total variance. Levels of academic motivation and PPSE anxiety, respectively, can be stated as significant predictors of the preservice teachers' levels of academic efficacy. On the other hand, the level of academic procrastination was not determined to be a significant predictor of their levels of teacher efficacy. From this result, it can be interpreted that the pre-service teachers who have high academic motivation set their goals more clearly and they work more because they have anxiety about being appointed within the framework of these goals. Therefore, motivating prospective teachers during their education and ensuring their motivation for teaching profession; it seems necessary to develop not only academically but also affectively.
Based on the results of the research, the following recommendations can be made for researchers and practitioners: With this study, it was revealed that academic motivation and PPSE anxieties are significant predictors of teacher efficacy. Experimental and qualitative studies can be conducted on the concept of academic motivation as a predictor of teacher efficacy and how the anxiety created by PPSE exam on prospective teachers affects their professional competencies. In order to ensure that they are trained as competent and influential teachers in their profession, the education institutions, which are the basic institutions that provide teacher education, can also organize the content of the program that supports the academic motivation of prospective teachers and includes the cognitive domain as well as affective domain acquisitions. However, as the grade level progresses, longitudinal studies can be conducted on whether or not there is a positive increase in the academic motivation levels of prospective teachers and also the positive progress of the process can be supported by examining the results.

Acknowledgement
This study was presented in the 5 th International Congress on Curriculum and Instruction held in Muğla,Turkey between 26-28 October 2017 as oral presentation.