To implement inclusive practices effectively, teachers need the right combination of knowledge, skills, and educational foundation. They must also believe in their own abilities and have confidence that they can bring about the changes that they wish to see in the classroom. In other words, they must have a strong sense of self-efficacy for teaching within inclusive classrooms.  Teachers who have a strong sense of self-efficacy in their teaching abilities provide lessons of higher instructional quality  (Miesera et al., 2019), pay more attention to the needs of individual students (Colson et al., 2017), are more flexible in their instruction and are more likely to involve students in decision making processes (Goddard & Evans, 2018). Due to the numerous benefits of a high level of self-efficacy, it is paramount that by the end of teacher education programs, pre-service teachers feel ready and confident to enter the workforce. However, it is equally as important that levels of self-efficacy remain stable into the first years of the teaching career. Once firmly established, self-efficacy beliefs are thought to be relatively unchanging (Bandura, 1997). A teacher who has a solid cognitive representation of their abilities is unlikely to have that concept changed, even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Research has increasingly focused on identifying the factors that contribute to high levels of self-efficacy for inclusive teaching practice. Results of studies that have included gender as a variable when examining pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy have been relatively mixed, with the different findings being largely attributed to cultural factors (e.g., Specht & Metsala, 2018; Shaukat et al., 2019) Those teaching in elementary grades have higher levels of self-efficacy for teaching within inclusive classrooms when compared to their contemporaries who are preparing to teach secondary grades (Sharma et al., 2015). Teachers who have more experiences with diverse populations, either professional or personal, tend to have higher levels of self-efficacy for teaching within inclusive classrooms than pre-service teachers who have fewer experiences (Peebles & Mendaglio, 2014; Specht & Metsala, 2018). Although the literature surrounding the factors that contribute to self-efficacy for teaching is relatively rich, research into the predictive capabilities of these factors is scarce.  For example, Specht and Metsala (2018) found that for pre-service teachers preparing to teach elementary grades, significant predictors of higher self-efficacy were gender, having friends with diverse learning needs, the amount of experience that they had teaching students with diverse learning needs, and if they had more student-centred patterns of educational beliefs. For those preparing to teach secondary grades, significant predictors were gender, the amount of diverse teaching experience, their beliefs regarding the stability of academic ability, and their beliefs toward the use of extrinsic rewards to motivate learning.

Additionally, only a handful of studies have investigated the longitudinal development of self-efficacy for the inclusive practice of teachers into their first years of in-service teaching. George et .al., 2018 examined efficacy for inclusive practice in year 1 and 5 of teaching and found a significant increase; Mintz, 2019 found stability from leaving preservice to the first year of teaching.

The current study adds to our understanding of the development of self-efficacy from the beginning of initial teacher education through to the first 2 years of teaching by asking the following questions:

1. What is the trajectory for self-efficacy for teaching within inclusive classrooms from the pre-service period into in-service teaching?

2.  What quantitative factors influence the trajectory for self-efficacy?

Participants Participants in this study were a sample of 378 (301 women; 77 men) pre-service teachers from 11 faculties of education across Canada, followed from the beginning of their pre-service period into their second year of teaching. Two-hundred and twenty-six were preparing to teach elementary while the other 152 planned to teach in secondary school. Measures Participants provided information on their gender, level of personal and professional experience ranging from none to extensive experience, and number of weeks on practicum prior to their first class on inclusive education. They completed two questionnaires. The Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practice questionnaire (TEIP; see Sharma et al., 2012), assessed their feelings of: Efficacy in Collaboration, which measures the participants’ self-perceptions of working with parents and colleagues in the schools; Efficacy in Managing Behaviour, referring to sense of competence in dealing with disruptive behaviours in the classroom; and Efficacy to Use Inclusive Instruction, which refers to the use of teaching strategies consistent with the inclusion of all learners. Each scale has been found to have high internal reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.85, 0.85, and 0.93, respectively (Sharma et al., 2012). The Beliefs About Learning and Teaching Questionnaire (BLTQ, see Glenn, 2018) measured beliefs related to: Student-Centred Instruction, with high scores representing beliefs that students’ needs and the learning process are the focus of teachers’ instruction-based decisions; Teacher-Controlled Instruction, for which high scores indicate beliefs that a teacher’s focus is on transmitting information; Entity- Increment, with high scores1 indicating beliefs that students’ learning ability is a fixed rather than a malleable trait that is relatively impervious to good instruction; and Attaining Standards, for which high scores represent beliefs that external rewards, such as high grades, are primary motivators for students. A perspective consistent with a positive outlook on inclusion would include high scores on the Student-Centred scale, and low scores on and Entity-Increment, Teacher Controlled, and Attaining Standards scales. Cronbach’s alpha for the four scales are: .66, .73, .64, and .70, respectively (Glenn, 2018). Procedure Participants completed the measures at four points in time approximately one year apart: before participants took their first course on inclusive education, toward the end of their time in their faculties of education, and into their first, and second year of in-service teaching.

The trajectories of inclusive instruction, managing behaviour, and collaboration over time were jointly estimated using multigroup latent class growth models. This approach aims to identify unique subgroups of participants that share similar trajectories across multiple outcomes. A probability of belonging to each group is assigned to each participant, and the participant is assigned to a group based on the highest probability value (Nagin et al. 2018). Trajectories of Self-efficacy The three domains of self-efficacy were best modeled using two groups. The first group qualitatively labelled “low-increasing”, was composed of 43% of the sample who had relatively low scores on each self-efficacy domain in Year 1 and showed significant, though modest improvements over time; the mean improvement per year ranged from 0.05 (for Collaboration) to 0.08 (Managing Behavior). The second group, qualitatively labelled “high-stable”, was composed of 57% of the sample, who had relatively high scores on each self-efficacy domain in Year 1 that remained stable over time; notably, scores of Inclusive Instruction and Managing Behavior showed a quadratic trajectory, showing some improvement in Year 2 and 3 but similar scores in Year 1 and 4. Characteristics Associated with Each Trajectory Characteristics in Year 1 of participants in each trajectory group were compared using unadjusted and adjusted modified Poisson regression; adjusted models controlled for the demographic, experience, and BLTQ scores. People with high efficacy trajectories were more likely to plan to teach in the elementary panel, had extensive experience with people with disabilities, and a belief that ability is malleable and student need should be the focus of teacher instruction. Results will be discussed with reference to early teacher education.

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