Teachers’ Belief and Efficacy Toward Inclusive Education in Early Childhood Settings in Korea

Abstract

In the literature, teacher self-efficacy has been found to increase teachers’ effective teaching strategies and students’ positive learning outcomes in inclusive education, which highlights the importance of identifying and fostering factors associated with increased self-efficacy. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine the relations between teachers’ demographic and background variables (i.e., age, teaching experience, and training experience), teachers’ beliefs toward inclusive education, and teachers’ self-efficacy. Specifically, this study aimed to test the mediating effects of teachers’ beliefs toward inclusive education on the relations between teachers’ demographic and background variables and their self-efficacy using structural equation modeling (SEM). Teacher beliefs toward inclusive education included the effectiveness of inclusive education on the social and cognitive development of children with disabilities and on non-disabled students’ understanding of the needs of children with disabilities. Results indicated that whereas teacher age and teaching and training experiences had no direct relations with teachers’ self-efficacy in inclusive education, teaching and training experiences had significant indirect relations with their self-efficacy through their beliefs toward inclusive education. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Öğretmenleri̇n Kaynaştirma Öğrenci̇leri̇ne İli̇şki̇n Görüşleri̇ni̇n Metaforlar Araciliğiyla İncelenmesi̇

“…In the light of the arguments in the literature, it is possible to say that teachers' beliefs and attitudes play a crucial role in the implementation and success of inclusive education. There are many studies (AlMahdi & Bukamal, 2019;Alnahdi, Saloviita, & Elhadi, 2019;Altun & Filiz, 2020;Anılan & Kayacan, 2015;Deniz & Çoban, 2019;Güleryüz & Özdemir, 2015;Katıtaş & Coşkun, 2020;Kurt & Tomul, 2020 ;Magumise & Sefotho, 2020;Moberg, Muta, Korenaga, Kuorelahti, & Savolainen, 2020;Özcan, 2020;Page, Boyle, McKay, & Mavropoulou, 2019;Saloviita, 2020;Sheehy, Budiyanto, Kaye, & Rofiah, 2019;Vanderpuye, Obosu, & Nishimuko, 2020;Woodcock & Woolfson, 2019;You, Kim, & Shin, 2019) in the literature that investigated teachers' attitudes, beliefs and competencies towards inclusive education. However, it was seen that there was a scant of studies (Kök, Balcı, & Bilgiz, 2017;Krischler & Pit-ten Cate, 2019) with the teachers who were actively provide inclusive education, that is having at least one special needs student in their class.…”

Early childhood professional culture: Social networks and beliefs among pre-kindergarten educators

“…International research suggests that the variability in teacher self-efficacy exists primarily across teachers rather than across schools or countries (Fackler and Malmberg, 2016). There is evidence from South Korea that some of the variability in self-efficacy is derived from age and/or experience increasing positive beliefs about specific aspects of teaching practice (You et al, 2019).…”

Does the School Really Support My Child? SOFIA: An Assessment Tool for Families of Children with SEN in Spain

“…Simultaneously, much of the research in the field use qualitative techniques, mainly semi-structured interviews, and focus or discussion groups [56][57][58][59][60], making it difficult to collect, compare and generalize data [61]. The few studies using questionnaires [53,59,60] have focused, as discussed above, either on specific disorders or in student's and teacher's variables [62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69], often leaving aside the perception of the parents. For all the above reasons, there is a need to assess the opinion of the parents of children with SEN regarding the education their children receive, and to give them a voice through a tool that is reliable and valid and that allows studies to be carried out in this respect, in order to enhance the participation of these parents in the inclusive education of their children.…”