INVESTIGATION OF ADOLESCENT ATTITUDES TOWARDS VIOLENCE IN TERMS OF GENDER AND SELF-EFFICACY
This study aims at investigating adolescents’ attitude toward violence in terms of gender and self-efficacy domains. This brings about the question: "Do adolescents' attitudes toward violence differ in terms of gender and academic, social, emotional and general self-efficacy levels?" Participants consisted of 1078 students, especially during the early period (12-13 years) of adolescence. These students who have attended fourteen states secondary schools in the province of Mersin/Turkey have been determined through random sampling. Research data was obtained in the fall term of 2016-2017 academic year. Attitudes Toward Violence Scale and Questionnaire for Measuring Self-Efficacy in Youths are used. In analysis phase, two-way ANOVA was used to examine the differentiation of students' attitudes toward violence in terms of gender and self-efficacy level. LSD test was used to determine the source of variance between groups. When the findings obtained from this study were examined, it was observed that the males in early adolescence had better attitudes toward violence than the females. In other words, their attitudes toward violence were more positive. According to another finding of the research, adolescents with low academic, social, emotional and general self-efficacy have higher attitudes toward violence than adolescents with high self-efficacy. Considering the common impact of gender and self-efficacy levels, the attitudes toward violence do not significantly differ.

Keywords
Gender, self-efficacy, attitudes toward violence