As more schools around the globe become inclusive, the student body in many classes is getting more diverse with regard to various dimensions. In order to make the shift to inclusive education a success, a variety of conditions summarised in “the 4 As” of Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability, and Adaptability have to be in place (UN-CRPD, 2016).  To meet the heterogeneous needs of all learners, teachers of course are crucial with regard to both their individual competences as well as their collective performance as part of a multi-professional team (Sharma et al., submitted; Subban et al., 2022). Searching for factors of success, many studies emphasize teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion, their self-efficacy as well as their collective efficacy as being essential (e.g. Wray et al., 2022; Zee & Koomen, 2016).

Collective efficacy is defined as “a group’s shared belief in its conjoint capability to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given levels of attainment” (Bandura, 1997, p. 477). Individualized teaching adapted to students’ diversity requires well-functioning teams of teachers characterized by high solidarity, mutual appreciation and respect, and shared responsibility which are closely connected to their collective efficacy. Accordingly, school teams achieving a high degree of collective efficacy appear to set themselves higher goals and to pursue them with an elevated persistence. According to Goddard et al. (2000), shared goals can be regarded as normative expectations for the individual teacher, influencing their beliefs about teaching and learning as well as their performance in the classroom. Accordingly, collective efficacy and individual self-efficacy are interconnected (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007) and teachers’ collective efficacy is known for being linked to students’ achievements (e.g. Tschannen-Moran & Barr, 2004; Zee & Koomen 2016). While teachers’ individual as well as collective efficacy have been extensively studied with regard to promoting students’ academic success, teachers’ collective efficacy with respect to inclusive practices has been largely neglected thus far, especially from an international perspective (e.g. Sharma et al., submitted). The scarcity of questionnaire scales having been successfully proved of their international validity employing criteria such as measurement invariance could be a reason for the sparse research in the respective field. International comparisons are of particular interest for each country or school system, respectively, as they can help to identify alternative approaches and possibilities for inclusive school development. Canada, for example, is of particular interest, especially from a European perspective, since it has long been seen as a best practice example with respect to inclusive teaching but has recently been regarded more critically (e.g. Merz-Atalik 2022). Against this background, the paper to be presented is examining a newly developed scale assessing teachers’ collective efficacy with regard to inclusive practices in a global context (Sharma et al., submitted). It covers the characterisation of the scale by evaluating its dimensionality and factorial structure. In addition, it provides data and discussion on the measurement invariance across Canada, Germany and Switzerland as a well as selected comparisons regarding the relevance of individual background variables such as gender and teaching experience. 

Our analysis is integral part of an international research project aiming at predicting teachers’ intentions to teach in inclusive classrooms in a global context. Within the scope of this project, questionnaires were administered online to 897 preschool, primary and secondary school teachers (63% female) in the Canadian province of Alberta (n=281), the German federal state of North Rhine-Westfalia (n=257) and the Canton Bern in Switzerland (n=359). Approximately half of the teachers reported having a teaching experience of 10 years or more (52.3%) while beginners (1-4 years: 26.5%) and teachers with 6 to 10 years of experience (21.2%) make up for one forth or one fifth of the sample, respectively. All of the following age groups were fairly equally represented: under 30 years: 22%; 30–39 years 27.40%; 40–49 years: 23.8%; over 50 years: 26.8%. Collective teaching efficacy to implement inclusive practices (CTEIP) was measured using 18 items which theoretically can be assigned into three dimensions: ‘Inclusive Instructions’ (6 items, e.g., “Teachers in my cohort/school can provide appropriate challenges for very capable students.”; M=4.52, SD=.85, ω=.91), ‘Managing Behaviour” (6 items, e.g., “Teachers in my cohort/school can prevent disruptive behaviour in the classroom before it occurs.”; M=4.33, SD=.85, ω=.91) and ‘Collaboration’(6 items, e.g., “Teachers in my cohort/school are able to work jointly with other professionals and staff (e.g. aides, other teachers) to ensure that all students are included in the classroom.”; M=4.36, SD=.87, ω=.88). Teachers were asked to rate their agreement on the various items on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (=strongly disagree) to 6 (=strongly agree). CTEIP was adapted from an instrument measuring teachers’ individual teaching efficacy to implement inclusive practices (TEIP; Sharma et al., 2012; Sharma et al., submitted). In order to evaluate the factorial structure of CTEIP, a confirmatory and exploratory structural equation modelling (ESEM) framework was used employing the software Mplus (Version 8.8, Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2022). Estimations were done using robust maximum-likelihood estimator (MLR). Subsequently, measurement invariance across countries was examined by means of multiple group comparisons. At last, the factors gender, age and teaching experience were included as predictors of collective teaching efficacy to specify a multiple indicator multiple causes model (MIMIC; Marsh et al., 2013).

To examine the dimensionality of CTEIP, different theory-driven confirmatory factorial analyses (CFA) and ESEMs were tested. After testing and refusing unidimensional as well as bifactorial models, a three factor first order CFA was compared to an equivalent ESEM with the latter appearing to fit the data better. This model also withstands the examination of measurement invariance, therefore meeting the statistical requirement for cross-country comparisons. Significant differences, ascertained on the basis of latent means and by taking Canada as a standard (with its latent means constrained to zero) are found for Germany regarding ‘managing behaviour’ (M=-.23) as well as ‘collaboration’ (M=-34) and for Switzerland regarding ‘collaboration’ (M=-.47). Apparently, Canadian teachers show higher levels of collective efficacy with regard to teaching in diversity-enriched classes to at least some extent compared to the two central European countries. Based on a subsequently employed ESEM MIMIC, the factor gender (1=male, 2=female) appears to have a small effect in the Canadian sample on ‘managing behaviour’ (β=.15, p=.008) and ‘collaboration’ (β=.16, p=.009) and also in the German sample (‘managing behavior’: β=-.14, p=.035; ‘collaboration’: β=-.17, p=.016). The same holds true for ‘collaboration’ in the Swiss sample (β=-.13, p=.045). Thus, female teachers tend to have higher values for two out of three dimensions of collective efficacy in Canada, while in Germany the same holds true for male teachers. In Switzerland the higher values for males are limited to the collaboration-oriented dimension. Age-related effects were only found in the Swiss sample regarding ‘inclusive instructions’ (β=-.20, p=.009) and ‘managing behavior’ (β=-.20, p=.008). This indicates that older teachers in Switzerland are less pronounced in their collective efficacy to at least some extent. Teaching experience has no significant effect on teachers’ collective efficacy in any of the three countries. More results and country-specific interpretation will be presented and discussed in the final paper.

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