Internationally, a significant mandate across the school sector is evident, and more and more schools are now including learners with a range of diversities in mainstream classrooms. This trend is also evident in Kazakhstan.  In 2015, the Ministry of Education approved the conceptual approaches to the development of inclusive education in the Republic of Kazakhstan” (Ministry of Education and Science, 2015),  and ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2015 and the push to make all schools more inclusive is evident (Allan & Omarova, 2022). 

Mandating inclusion or formulating policies on inclusive education does not guarantee that schools will become inclusive. Effective implementation of inclusion requires that school leaders are fully supportive of inclusion reforms and that teachers are well-prepared and confident to include all learners. One of the most effective and robust ways to determine if school personnel are ready to include all learners is to examine their teaching efficacy beliefs in inclusive classrooms. Research on teachers' beliefs about teaching in inclusive classrooms in Kazakhstan is almost non-existent. It is within this context the current research was conducted. We were keen to determine the level of teaching efficacy beliefs of teachers in the country. 

This research was grounded in Bandura's theory of self-efficacy beliefs. Bandura (1977) posited that possessing knowledge and skills alone is insufficient; teachers must also believe in their ability to perform tasks successfully, both under normal and challenging conditions. In essence, tecahers require both the relevant knowledge and skills for their profession (in this case  the skill set to include all learners), as well as strong self-efficacy beliefs, to implement inclusive practices. Bandura defined self-efficacy as "people's judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to attain designated types of performances" (Bandura, 1986, p. 391).  Teaching efficacy beliefs are context and subject specific. In other words, if a teacher is highly efficacious in teaching English does not mean that the teacher will also be highly efficacious in teaching literacy. 

Inadequate preparation of teachers has been identified as a barrier to inclusive education both internationally and in Kazakhstan (Akmonshak et al., 2023, p. 116). According to Agavelyaan et al., (2020), teachers generally hold positive perceptions of people with additional needs, but are critical of the idea of inclusive education and “not ready to accept in their class children who need an individualized curriculum and children with complicated disorders” (Agavelyan et al., 2020, p. 16). The research on teachers' efficacy beliefs towards inclusion could provide a useful insight about how well prepared they are to teach inclusive across the nation. However, a significant challenge to answer this question is the lack of reliable and valid instruments that could be used to undertake this exercise. The current research was conducted with two primary objectives. First, to validate a robust scale to measure teacher efficacy to teach in inclusive classrooms to be used for the local context, and second, to determine the level of teacher efficacy beliefs of teachers nationally and determine if any background variables influenced their beliefs. 

Participants The data was collected from across the nation using an online questionnaire after obtaining approval from the Ministry of Education. An email was sent to administrators at the regional level who then forwarded the link to teachers in their respective regions. A total of 16,237 public school teachers from across all 17 regions and the three major cities of the country were invited to participate in the study. A total of 6186 teachers participated in the study, representing all regions of the country. Instrumentation. The data was collected using a two-part questionnaire. The first part gathered teachers’ demographic information related to teachers’ gender, age, highest level of education, length of teaching experience, and region. Part two of the scale consisted of the Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices scale (TEIP) developed in 2011 (Sharma, Loreman & Forlin, 2012) to measure the perceived personal efficacy of teachers for inclusive education. TEIP has been used widely internationally (Wray, et.al, 2023) with reports of high reliability across various contexts (Matić et al., 2023; Pivarč, 2024; Selenius & Ginner Hau, 2024; Vogiatzi et al., 2022). The scale consists of 20 items, and each item can be responded on a 6 point scale of Strongly Disagree (1), Disagree (2), Disagree Somewhat (3), Agree Somewhat (4), Agree (5), and Strongly Agree (6) anchors. A higher score indicates more positive feelings of teaching self-efficacy specific to inclusive education. The scale was translated into two local languages (Russian and Kazak) using a conceptual translation method by two local scholars who were competent in English and the local languages. Data analysis SPSS 28.0 and R version 4.4.1 were used for data analysis. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was conducted to determine the factor structure for the local context. Descriptive statistics was used to determine the level of efficacy beliefs on the total scale and three factors (Efficacy in Collaboration, Efficacy in using Inclusive Instruction, and Efficacy in behaviour management). ANOVAs were calculated to examine the relationship of background variables with their efficacy beliefs.

The CFA analysis revealed a factor structure largely consistent with original study (Sharma, r et al., 2012). The initial model with a three-factor structure was preliminarily evaluated. The initial model fit indices revealed marginally acceptable results (χ2(df=132) =3005.827, CFI=0.912, TLI=0.898, RMSEA=0.080, SRMR=0.042), with the TLI slightly below the threshold of 0.90 The total scale score and the three subscales related to efficacy in managing behaviour, efficacy in collaboration, and efficacy to use inclusive instructions, all obtained high reliability scores (>0.83), indicating a strong and reliable scale. The findings in relation to efficacy mean score for the total scale and factor scores revealed that the participants were reasonably confident across all of the three aspects of inclusive education, namely, using inclusive instruction, collaboration, and managing behaviour, measured by the TEIP. Some significant differences were noted in their efficacy beliefs based on their background variables. For example, in general, female teachers were significantly more efficacious in using inclusive instructions and in collaborating with others than their male counterparts. The findings of the study have significant implications for university educators, school leaders, policy makers nationally as well as researchers from European and other countries. These will be discussed in greater detail during the presentation.

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