Do they practise what they preach? Factors associated with teachers’ use of inclusive teaching practices among in‐service teachers

Abstract

Applying the 'theory of planned behaviour' to teachers' actions in the classroom, it can be assumed that teachers' positive attitudes towards inclusive education and high self-efficacy beliefs result in an increased use of inclusive teaching practices. However, scientific evidence for this assumption is lacking. This study aimed to investigate factors influencing teachers' use of inclusive teaching practices. In total, 221 (188 female and 33 male) Austrian in-service teachers participated. Participants filled out the attitudes towards inclusion scale (AIS), the Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices Scale (TEIP) and the teacher version of the Inclusive Teaching Practices Scale (ITPS-T). Results showed that teachers had high self-perceptions towards their use of inclusive teaching practices; compared with secondary school, primary school teachers reported using more inclusive teaching practices; there was no difference between expert and novice teachers; teachers' attitudes and self-efficacy were associated with inclusive teaching practices; and self-efficacy predicted teachers' use of inclusive teaching practices. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

DI (Differentiated Instruction) Does Matter! The Effects of DI on Secondary School Students’ Well-Being, Social Inclusion and Academic Self-Concept

“…In line with previous research, descriptive results further indicated that students reported relatively high ratings of school-wellbeing, social inclusion and academic self-concept (Alnahdi and Schwab, 2020;Schwab and Alnahdi, 2020;Zubriggen et al, 2021). However, high mean scores do not automatically imply that all students are reaching satisfying levels in their socio-emotional well-being.…”

“…Most research that explores the effectiveness of DI has mainly focused on investigating its impact on students' achievement. Research which analyzes the impact of DI on students' nonachievement outcomes are relatively limited (Schwab and Alnahdi, 2020). As variables such as students' school wellbeing, social inclusion and academic self-concept are also central objectives of inclusive education and education in general , it is necessary to address this research gap.…”

Differentiation and Grouping Practices as a Response to Heterogeneity – Teachers’ Implementation of Inclusive Teaching Approaches in Regular, Inclusive and Special Classrooms

“…However, other variables like e.g., teachers' constructivist beliefs (see Pozas et al, 2020) or teachers attitudes toward inclusive education (see e.g., Schwab and Alnahdi, 2020) might be underlying factors which are not investigated within the present study.…”

Teachers’ beliefs about peer social interactions and their relationship to practice in Chinese inclusive preschools

“…Empirical studies (Hellmich, Löper, and Görel 2019;Schwab and Alnahdi 2020) indicated that teachers' beliefs interact with their practices in complex ways; however, little is known about the nature and the extent of this interaction (Farrell and Ives 2015). Two main trends illustrating the relationship were identified.…”