Italian teacher education programs are being put under pressure to reform the way they are preparing learning support teachers to teach in inclusive classrooms (Aiello, Corona & Sibilio, 2014). It is now expected that these teachers need to have methodological and didactic competencies as well as having a positive attitude towards inclusion in addition to an intention to promote inclusion. One way researchers have examined teachers’ readiness to teach in inclusive classrooms is by examining their attitudes. Most studies examining impact of teacher education programs show that participation in a university course with specific focus on disability or inclusive education tend to improve teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion (Sharma & Nuttal, 2015; Hastings & Oakford, 2003) provided the content of the program covers appropriate content (Sharma, Forlin & Loreman, 2008) and that the students following such courses are systematically exposed to students with disabilities (Forlin & Chambers, 2011).

Is change in attitudes sufficient? Can we expect that teachers with positive attitudes will adopt inclusive practices to include all learners irrespective of ability or do we need to determine educators’ preparedness to teach as learning  support teachers  using additional measures? Several researchers who have examined attitudes of stakeholders in various fields report that attitudes account for less than 30% of variance in actual behaviour and it is critical that we take into account other variables that may influence their behaviour (Sharma & Mannan, 2015).

The current study is based on the premise that  for learning support teachers to teach effectively in inclusive classrooms, it is critical that we address concerns regarding this issue. In addition, it is important to ensure that they have a high level of teaching efficacy to teach in inclusive classrooms and finally that they have positive attitudes towards inclusion of all learners.

We hypothesized that learning  support teachers with lower degree of concerns, higher level of teaching efficacy, and favourable attitudes are likely to have positive intentions to teach in inclusive classrooms.  The theoretical foundations of the current project are based on Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991). According to Ajzen, an individual’s actual behaviour could best be predicted based on individual’s intention to perform or not to perform the behaviour. Intentions in turn are influenced by the individual’s perceived competence to perform the behaviour (or teaching efficacy), his or her attitude toward the behaviour, and, subjective norm (or how the significant others in the environment evaluate the behaviour). In the current study we will measure three (attitude, perceived competence, intentions) out of four key aspects of TPB to determine Italian learning  support teachers intentions to teach in inclusive classrooms. As we will not be able to measure subjective norm aspect in the current study; we will use PSTs’ concerns about inclusion as a proxy indicator of their subjective norm.

A key objective of the study is to determine if participation in a university program has a significant impact on  attitudes, concerns and efficacy and eventually on their intentions to teach in inclusive classrooms as learning  support teachers.

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