SELF-EFFICACY OF PRESCHOOL AND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 1 TEACHERS FOR INCLUSIVE PRACTICES

ABSTRACT

This article aimed to compare the sense of self-efficacy of Pre-School and Elementary School I teachers to teach students target audience of Special Education (PAEE) in the regular classroom of the municipal public network and to relate the sense of self-efficacy with demographic and professional performance. In the research, a total of 17 teachers from Pre-School and 27 from Elementary School 1 from a city in the interior of São Paulo participated. Data were obtained through a characterization questionnaire and the Teacher Effectiveness Scale for Inclusive Practices via central tendency, dispersion and correlations. When compared to Elementary 1 teachers, Pre-School teachers are older, have fewer students in the classroom and they feel more prepared to include. The self-efficacy values ​​were similar between the two groups and the correlation data between the instruments are described. It was corroborated in the signaling of the potency and sensitivity of the EEDPI for the evaluation of teacher self-efficacy and the influence of the construct in the educational context.

Keywords:
special education; teacher’s expectations; self-efficacy

RESUMO

Este artigo objetivou comparar o senso de autoeficácia dos professores da Pré-Escola e Ensino Fundamental I para ensinar estudantes público-alvo da Educação Especial (PAEE) na sala de aula regular da rede pública municipal e relacionar o senso de autoeficácia com dados demográficos e de atuação profissional. Participaram da pesquisa 17 professores da Pré-Escola e 27 do Ensino Fundamental 1 de um município do interior paulista. Os dados foram obtidos mediante questionário de caracterização e a Escala de Eficácia Docente para Práticas Inclusivas (EEDPI) via tendência central, dispersão e correlacionais. Quando comparados com os professores do Fundamental 1, os da Pré-Escola possuem mais idade, menos alunos em sala e sentem-se mais preparados para incluir. Os valores de autoeficácia foram semelhantes entre os grupos e são descritos os dados de correlação entre os instrumentos. Corroborou-se na sinalização da potência e sensibilidade da EEDPI para avaliação da autoeficácia docente e da influência do constructo no contexto educativo.

Palavras-chave:
educação especial; expectativas do professor; autoeficácia

RESUMEN

En este artículo se tuvo por objetivo comparar el sentido de autoeficacia de los profesores de la Preescuela y Enseñanza Básica I para enseñar estudiantes destinatario de la educación especial (PAEE) en la clase regular de la red pública municipal y relacionar el sentido de autoeficacia con datos demográficos y de actuación profesional. Participaron 17 profesores de la Preescuela y 27 de la Enseñanza Básica 1 de un municipio do interior paulista. Se obtuvieron los datos por intermedio de un cuestionario de caracterización y la Escala de Eficacia Docente para Prácticas Inclusivas (EEDPI) vía tendencia central, dispersión y correlacionales. Cuando comparados con los profesores de la Enseñanza Básica 1, los de la Preescuela posee más edad, menos alumnos en clase y se sienten más preparados para incluir. Los valores de autoeficacia fueron semejantes entre los grupos y son descriptos los datos de correlación entre los instrumentos. Se corroboró en la señalización de la potencia y sensibilidad de la EEDPI para evaluación de la autoeficacia docente y de la influencia del constructo en el contexto educativo.

Palabras clave:
educación especial; expectativas del profesor; autoeficacia

INTRODUCTION

The Social Cognitive Theory proposed by Bandura (1986) considers that the attitude of initiating, persisting or abandoning an action is related to individuals’ beliefs about their skills and abilities to face the environment demands, that is, their self-efficacy. For the author, this is a behavior predictor and modulated by mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, social persuasion and physiological and affective states.

This theoretical perspective of Bandura (1997) argues that it is mainly the construct of self-efficacy that will guide the individual’s own aspirations, choices, behaviors, effort and affective reactions. This means that self-efficacy is related to outcome expectations (Bandura, 2004), as people who doubt their own capabilities in a given task will consequently not have as many expectations of possibilities to achieve the desired result, having a limiting comprehension of the circumstances in comparison with people who have higher success beliefs for a specific demand.

In this sense, Pajares (2004) and Pajares and Olaz (2008) clarify that studies on self-efficacy, even in different perspectives, similarly point out that the beliefs that the individual carries about himself are decisive in relation to human effort and, consequently, influence the motivation, well-being and personal satisfaction to achieve success in a given achievement.

Self-efficacy in teaching, therefore, can be defined as the teacher’s judgment about their own abilities to teach any student, regardless of the level of academic difficulty or motivation of that student (Azzi, 2014; Bzuneck, 2017; Gibbs, 2003; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2007). This assumption takes into account that teachers with higher self-efficacy feel more able to intervene and influence students’ learning, they are more satisfied in their profession and have higher levels of motivation to do so (Azzi, 2014; Bzuneck, 2017; Gibbs, 2003; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2007).

According to Azzi and Polydoro (2006) and Martins (2018), the teacher can present a high level of self-efficacy to teach students considered typical and lower levels regarding their abilities to teach students who are characterized as a target audience of Special Education (PAEE), that is, students with disabilities, pervasive developmental disorders or high abilities/giftedness (Decree 10,502, 2020; Law n. 13,146, 2015).

On the other hand, there are currently few national studies that relate the construct of self-efficacy and Special Education, because according to the systematization of Martins and Chacon (2019), until 2017, only five Brazilian publications were identified, considering theses, dissertations and scientific articles. Among these publications, there was a predominance of quantitative designs, regarding adapted physical education and school inclusion in Higher Education.

It is noteworthy that the scarcity of national works about the construct is not specific to the field of Special Education, as Iaochite, Costa Filho, Matos and Sachimbombo (2016) found that from 2002 to 2013, 15 scientific articles were published that related self-efficacy and the general education area, predominantly quantitative studies about academic self-efficacy, teacher self-efficacy, and mainly, the validation of instruments constructed in other countries.

In order for teachers’ self-efficacy in relation to inclusive practices to be evaluated in the Brazilian context, the validation of scales that make it possible can be considered a promising possibility for future studies, both for quantitative and qualitative data.

Currently, the Escala de Eficácia Docente para Práticas Inclusivas (EEDPI) (Martins, 2018) is the scale in Portuguese for measuring the level of self-efficacy of teachers in general in creating an inclusive environment in the classroom. This scale was applied to 308 teachers working in Early Childhood Education and Elementary School I and II, reaching internal reliability by Cronbach’s Alpha of 0.92.

The version released by Martins (2018) comes from the translation and adaptation of the Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices (TEIP) Scale (Sharma, Loreman, & Forlin, 2012), whose creation had the objective of measuring the perceived teaching effectiveness belief for teaching in inclusive classes, considering the environment and general inclusive teaching practices and not just focusing on the PAEE student, with the aim of moving away from the conception of a medical model between what is considered average and deviant.

The TEIP (Sharma, Loreman, & Forlin, 2012) was attested by its creators as reliable internationally and, since then, it has been translated into different contexts, such as China (Feng & Wang, 2014), Portugal (Dias, 2017), Arabia (Alnahdi, 2019) and Mexico (Romero-Contreras, Garcia-Cedillo, Forlin, & Lomelí-Hernández, 2013), all of which have internal reliability validation.

When we look at Bandura’s (2006) self-efficacy construct, it is possible to identify in the EEDPI the six dimensions proposed by the author for the teacher’s self-efficacy scales creation, which are: influence in decision-making, educational, disciplinary, parental involvement, community involvement and creating a positive school climate. In this sense, in general, TEIP and EEDPI have indications of potency to help measure teacher’s self-efficacy in inclusive practices.

The other Brazilian scales that associate the inclusive perspective and self-efficacy found in the literature are specific to an area of activity; as the "Escala de Autoeficácia para a Inclusão de Alunos com Deficiência em Aulas de Educação Física"¹ translated by Fernandes, Costa Filho and Iaochite (2019). Or for a specific condition, such as the "Escala de autoeficácia para professores de alunos com autismo"² translated and adapted to the Brazilian reality by Canabarro, Teixeira and Schmidt (2018).

In a brief search in the journals of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES, 2019) in October 2019, the search terms EEDPI or Escala de Eficácia Docente para Práticas Inclusivas were associated and no results were obtained, which can be justified by the recent defense of Martins’ doctorate (2018) and which reinforces the relevance of the applicability of the Brazilian version in new demographic contexts.

Considering the interest in measuring teacher self-efficacy in inclusive practices in general, not restricting it to a specific area of knowledge or student’s condition, the objective of this work was to compare the sense of self-efficacy of Pre-School and Elementary School I teachers to teach PAEE students in the regular classroom of the municipal public network and relate the sense of self-efficacy with demographic data and the teachers’ professional performance.

METHOD

Ethical Issues

The work was submitted to Plataforma Brasil by CAAE: 16767219.0.0000.5504 and approved by opinion 3,585,793, following Resolution 510/2016 of the Ethics Committee for Research with Human Beings (Conselho Nacional de Saúde, 2016). In addition, authorization to carry out the research was requested from the Municipal Department of Education (SME), by sending an application containing the research objectives. After the due authorizations, data collection was started.

Outline

This is a descriptive and ex post facto design (Gil, 2008; Cozby, 2003).

Instruments

The participant characterization questionnaire was designed with the aim of characterizing the research participants and their teaching activities with the PAEE student. It is composed of eight questions, open and closed, which refer to the teacher ‘s characterization (questions 1 and 2), experience with the PAEE student (questions 3 to 6), personal satisfaction in the teaching performance (question 7) and optional observation (question 8).

The instrument was based on the Paganotti questionnaire (2017), which contains 19 questions. All the questions used for this research underwent modifications in the wording of the statement and in the multiple choice options so that they could cover all PAEE students, with the help of judges in the area.

The Escala de Eficácia Docente para Práticas Inclusivas (EEDPI) is the result of the translation and adaptation carried out by Martins (2018) of the TEIP (Sharma, Loreman, & Forlin, 2012) and reached adequate psychometric data, as already mentioned. The EEDPI consists of 16 Likert-type items, ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 6 (totally agree), which assess teacher self-efficacy to develop inclusive school practices, covering the use of educational strategies that promote inclusion, joint work with family members and other professionals and the management of behaviors in the classroom.

Sample

Data from the Demographic Census (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics [IBGE], 2019) indicate that the municipality in the interior of São Paulo, chosen for convenience, has an estimated population of approximately 303,000 inhabitants. In 2015, the Basic Education Index (IDEB) reached 6.4 points.

We chose to focus on pre-school and the early years of Elementary Education, according to the Statistical Synopsis of Basic Education (National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira [INEP], 2018), the largest number of students enrolled in the municipality (5,710 and 13,140 municipal enrollments, respectively), as well as a growing total of PAEE students between these teaching stages (70 and 411 enrollments, res respectively).

The school sample in the teaching stages of this study, included 54 municipal public schools, divided between institutions of Early Childhood and Elementary Education 1 (EMEIEF), Elementary Education 1 (EMEF), Early Childhood Education (EMEI) and municipal schools that serve Nursery, Early Childhood Education and Elementary Education 1 (CEIEF). Data from the Statistical Synopsis of Basic Education (INEP, 2018) indicated the performance of 520 teachers in Preschool and 883 teachers in the early years of Elementary School.

Participants

The criterion for inclusion of the participating professors was through the electronic signature of the TCLE. At that time, they attested that they were teachers in the common classroom of the public and municipal education network and working in 2019 in the first or second stage of Early Childhood Education or from 1st to 5th grade of Elementary School.

A total of 44 teachers participated in the research. Of these, there are 10 teachers from the first stage of Early Childhood Education, seven from the second stage of Early Childhood Education, nine from the 1st year of Elementary School, three from the 2nd year of Elementary School, four from the 3rd year of Elementary School, three from the 4th year of Elementary School and eight from the 5th year of Elementary School.

Only one professor identified with the male gender, so there was a predominance of females among the participants. The average age was 45 years, with the youngest being 23 years old and the oldest being 63 years old.

About the participants’ training, 15 indicated that they had taken a degree, 25 had taken a specialization course and four had taken or were taking an academic master’s degree.

Regarding the undergraduate courses, eight mentions were identified in Pedagogy, three in other degrees and four professors did not indicate. Considering the specialization courses, seven are in Psychopedagogy, nine in Special Education, three in Literacy, one in Early Childhood Education and another five in different areas of education. At the master’s level, all of them are academics, three in the field of education and one in another field.

Data collection procedure

The instruments were made available online from the Google forms tool, which was available from October to December 2019. The survey was publicized by telephone contact, through social networks and in person.

Data analysis procedure

The quantitative data, the analysis of measures of central tendency and dispersion or averages was carried out using the SPSS program - Version 20.0. In order to compare the data from the group of Pre-School teachers and the group of Elementary School 1 teachers, the t Test was used. To correlate the variables, Pearson’s correlation test was used (Cozby, 2003).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The data from the characterization questionnaire are available in Table 1, divided into Pre-School teachers (n=17) and Elementary School 1 teachers (n=27).

Table 1
Age Characterization, Time of Teaching Practice, Number of Enrolled Students, Time of Acting in the Stage in which He/She Taught in 2019, Feeling of Preparation for Inclusion in Regular Classroom and Level of Teacher Satisfaction.

Caracterization	Pre-School (n=17)		Elementary School 1 (n=27)
	Average	SD	Average	SD
Age	45,00	9,02	38,28	10,47
Teaching practice time	3,94	1,56	3,63	1,71
Number of enrolled students	19,53	2,40	26,30	5,63
Time acting in the same year in which he taught in 20191	2,29	1,21	2,22	1,18
Feeling of preparation for inclusion in a regular classroom 2	1,05	,42	,77	,57
Level of satisfaction with teaching work 3	4,00	,61	4,00	,87

• ¹ For statistical data referring to temporal measures, number 1 was adopted to identify up to 12 months, number 2 to identify from 1 year and 1 month to 4 years, number 3 to identify from 5 to 9 years, number 4 to identify from 10 to 14 years, number 5 to identify 15 to 19 years and number 6 for over 20 years.
• ² Feeling prepared to include the PAEE student in the regular classroom = 2 for the identification “always”, 1 for “sometimes” and 0 for “never”.
• ³ Level of satisfaction in teaching work = numbers 0 to 5, receiving as parameter 0 as totally dissatisfied and 5 as totally satisfied.

Teachers were questioned about receiving enrollment of PAEE students in the regular classroom and three of them indicated students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, because these students probably receive some kind of specialized educational assistance backed by municipal legislation, even though they are not contemplated as a PAEE student by current federal legislation (BRASIL, 2015, 2020

As shown in Table 1, Pre-School teachers had an average age of 45 years and received an average of 19.53 students in a regular classroom. Elementary School 1 teachers had an average age of 38.28 years and received an average of 26.30 students in a regular classroom.

Regarding the PAEE student, the data from the questionnaire revealed the frequency of responses when receiving enrollment from students with an Intellectual Disability report (15), Autistic Spectrum Disorder (10), Down Syndrome (five), Physical Disability(three), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (three)³, Hearing Impairment/Deafness (two), Cerebral Palsy (two), Multiple Disability (one) and Visual Impairment (one) in the regular classroom.

Of the 44 participating teachers, 15 (34.09%) claimed that they had not received a PAEE student in the 2019 school year. Only six teachers (13.63%) said they had never received a PAEE student in the common room at some point.

Taking into account the 39 teachers (88.63%) who indicated that they had students with a report in the 2019 school year and the number of enrollments in the regular classroom, it can be said that the reality of the studied context is not in accordance with the state law no. 15,830 (2015) which provides for the limit on the number of enrollments in Elementary and Secondary Education, per class, up to 20 students when there is one PAEE student and up to 15 when there are two or more PAEE students. Only seven of these teachers reported having up to 20 students enrolled in 2019, six of which are Pre-School teachers.

With the analysis of the results, it is noted that the Early Childhood Education teachers worked in teaching for an average of 3.94 years and worked in the same school grade in which they taught in 2019 for an average of 2.29 years. This means that the average performance of this group was the portion from 5 to 9 years and that the average time in the same school stage in which they taught was the portion from 1 year and 1 month to 4 years.

In the participants’ group from Elementary School 1, it was possible to verify that teachers had been teaching for an average of 3.63 years and worked in the same school stage in which they taught in 2019 for an average of 2.22 years. That is, they have an average of time portions similar to those of the other group.

Regarding the PAEE student’s feeling of preparation for inclusion, considering 1 and 2 as positive feelings regarding inclusion, the Pre-School teachers were closer to these values, adding up to an average of 1.05. Elementary 1 teachers reached an average of 0.77.

When comparing the group of teachers who taught Pre-School with the group of teachers who taught Elementary School 1, it was found that Pre-School teachers were statistically older (t = 2.11; p<0 .05), had fewer students in the classroom (t = 4.68; p<0.001) and felt more prepared to include PAEE students (t = 1.85; p<0.1), when compared to the Elementary School teachers 1.

In the context of this research, the difference in results between the stages may be related to the lower number of PAEE students in this school stage (INEP, 2018) and the lower number of students in the classroom, as Bandura (1997) considers that there are four sources of self-efficacy modeling, the construct that is linked with the feeling of feeling effective or not to perform a given task. Below they are described in order of influence.

For Bandura (1997) the first modeling source is the direct experiences, that is, the subject’s personal accomplishments. As success is attributed internally, it is understood that that behavior can be repeated in similar situations to achieve the considered success. In relation to the school space and the theme of Special Education, therefore, they come from the experiences lived between teacher and PAEE student.

The second source listed by Bandura (1997) is the vicarious experience, a process of social comparison arising from the performance of a person whom the individual considers as a model, who is generally similar in age or status. In relation to teaching, for example, it is related to learning and beliefs modeled by other teachers acting, whether through observation in person or in films, videos, books, among others.

The third modeling source is named by Bandura (1997) as verbal persuasion, the result of the symbolic experience expressed by other people regarding their ability to face situations, as a feedback. For example, when school management encourages its teachers by saying that they believe that teachers are competent to face the challenge at hand.

The last modeling source is the emotional and affective states, as Bandura (1997) states that the emotion or feeling that the individual feels in that context can bring possibilities or limitations to the action. If a teacher presents the feeling of anxiety or anguish every time he is going to teach, he may feel unable to make learning possible for his students, even if he has the technical competence to do so.

Based on the assumptions of Bandura (1986, 1997), it is inferred that if Pre-School teachers have less contact with PAEE students, it means that they have less mastery and vicarious experiences regarding their inclusion in the regular classroom. Considering the construct of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986, 1997), it can be understood that Elementary 1 teachers may have encountered more situations of failure in inclusive practices, bringing as a consequence the feeling of greater preparation in the group of Pre-School teachers.

Added to this, the smaller number of students enrolled in the Preschool, which allows for more moments of individualized attention to meet the educational needs of PAEE students in the regular classroom.

Regarding the level of satisfaction in teaching work, both groups recorded the same average of 4.00, with the maximum score being 5.00. Thus, it can be concluded that, even considering the different teaching stages, teachers in the municipal context feel satisfied with their teaching work, but not completely.

In order to assess the level of self-efficacy for inclusive practices of these participants, Table 2 reveals the mean and standard deviation (SD) data of the Preschool and Elementary School 1 groups by EEDPI item.

Table 2
Average and Standard Deviation of Participant Groups in the EEDPI Items.

EEDPI Items	Pre-School (n=17)		Elementary School 1 (n=27)
	Average	SD	Average	DP
1 I can make it clear to students what my expectations are regarding their behavior.	5,00	,79	5,25	,65
2 I am able to calm a disruptive/noisy student	4,82	,80	5,05	,82
3 I can make parents feel free to come to school.	5,05	,82	5,29	,66
4 I can help families to help their children do well in school (in terms of learning, interaction and behavior).	4,64	,86	4,77	,75
5 I can accurately assess student understanding of what I have taught.	4,94	,74	4,74	,81
6 I can propose suitable challenges to very capable students.	4,82	,88	4,96	,75
7 I am confident in my ability to prevent disruptive behavior from occurring in the classroom.	4,82	,80	4,70	,99
8 I can control disruptive behavior in the classroom	4,76	,83	4,59	1,11
9 I am confident in my ability to involve parents in the school activities of their children with disabilities.	4,58	,87	4,59	1,04
10 I am confident in planning educational activities so that the individual students’ needs with disabilities are adequately met.	4,41	,71	4,00	1,03
11 I can get children to follow classroom rules	4,94	,65	5,07	,82
12 I can work in collaboration with other professionals (for example, itinerant teachers; specialists; AEE teacher; LIBRAS interpreter, etc.) in the educational plans elaboration for students with disabilities.	4,88	1,11	4,88	1,08
13 I can work together with other professionals and staff (e.g. aides, other teachers) to teach students with disabilities in the classroom.	5,17	,80	4,96	1,01
14 I am confident in my ability to get students to work together in pairs or small groups.	4,94	,74	5,11	,75
15 I can design a variety of assessment strategies (e.g. portfolio assessment, tailored tests, performance-based assessment, etc.).	4,76	,66	5,00	,87
16 I am confident in providing information about laws and policies related to the students with disabilities inclusion to people who know little about the subject.	4,05	,89	4,25	1,05
Total EEDPI value	4,79	,51	4,80	,58

• Source: The author.

The groups presented statistically close results in terms of self-efficacy for inclusive EEDPI practices, considering that the group of Pre-School teachers reached an average of 4.79 and the group of Elementary School 1 teachers an average of 4.80 . The score followed a Likert Scale from 1 to 6, being 1 - Strongly Disagree, 2 - Disagree, 3 - Partially Disagree, 4 - Partially Agree, 5 - Agree, 6 - Totally Agree.

This proximity in self-efficacy at different school stages was also a result of the research by Romero-Contreras, Garcia-Cedillo, Forlin, & Lomelí-Hernández (2013) carried out with 286 teachers who were in the last two semesters of the program to start teaching in Mexico, adding up to 4.77 in Pre-School and 4.85 in Elementary 1.

In Martins’ thesis (2018), the EEDPI was applied to 308 teachers; among Early Childhood Education, Elementary School 1 and Elementary School 2, in the interior of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. With statistical significance of comparison, the participants of Early Childhood Education (p<0.001) and those of Elementary I (p=0.004) obtained scores of higher self-efficacy than those of Elementary School II.

Thus, the results of Romero-Contreras et al. (2013) and Martins (2018) corroborate the results from this work, strengthening the understanding that the self-efficacy for inclusive practices of the group of teachers of Early Childhood Education and Elementary School 1 statistically do not tend to be divergent, however much there is an increase in pedagogical requirements according to school grades and the increase in enrollments certified as a PAEE student specifically between these two teaching stages (INEP, 2018).

The highest average of the group of Pre-School teachers was centered on item 13 - “I am able to work together with other professionals and employees (for example, assistants, other teachers) to teach students with disabilities in the classroom” reaching an average of 5.17. Item 3 - “I can make parents feel free to come to school” was the highest average in the Elementary School group, with 5.29.

Regarding the lowest averages, it was possible to identify that item 16 - “I am confident in providing information about the laws and policies related to the inclusion of students with disabilities to people who know little about this subject” from the Pre-School group was the lowest average, with 4.05.

Also as a result of the EEDPI, item 10 - “I am confident in planning educational activities so that the individual needs of students with disabilities are adequately met” from the Elementary School 1 group revealed the lowest average with 4.00.

The insecurity in providing information about the laws that guarantee school inclusion and in planning activities to contemplate the learning of all students are issues that assess the training of this professional. Gatti (2017) considers that training for teaching at undergraduate and graduate level presents a certain distance from the current school routine. The author even questions the relation between teacher training and the social and educational needs found today, their political-philosophical relation, and questions the very role of school education.

Gatti (2017) indicates that the foundations of education in the field of didactics can be promising for the real needs currently found in schools, considering teaching as a complex profession that must be learned in an interdisciplinary way in courses involving teaching.

The correlational coefficients between the variables arranged in the teacher characterization questionnaire and the EEDPI are presented below. Table 3 refers to high statistical significance (p<0.01), Table 4 to low statistical significance (p<0.05) and Table 5 to correlational trends (+p<0.1).

Table 3
High Significance Correlation Coefficients (p<0.01) between Characterization Variables and EEDPI.

Variables	Feeling of preparation for school inclusion	Level of satisfaction with teaching work	Teaching time	Age
Level of satisfaction with teaching work				,401
EEDPI Item 5	,390
EEDPI Item 7	,412
EEDPI Item 8	,398
EEDPI Item 10	,451
EEDPI Item 11		,432
Time working in the same school grade he taught in 2019			,451

• Source: The author.

Table 4
Low Significance Correlation Coefficients (p<0.05) between Characterization Variables and EEDPI.

Variables	Feeling of preparation for school inclusion	Level of satisfaction with teaching work	Teaching time	Age	Tempo de atuação na mesma série escolar que lecionou 2019
Level of satisfaction with teaching work	,334		,346
Teaching time	,309
EEDPI Item 7		,326
EEDPI Item 10				,340
EEDPI Item 14					-,356
EEDPI total value	,377

• Source: The author..

.According to the data in Table 3, there was a statistically significant and positive correlation between items 5 - I can accurately assess the student’s understanding of what I have taught, 7 - I am confident in my ability to avoid the occurrence of disruptive behavior in the classroom, 8 - I can control disruptive behavior in the classroom and 10 - I am confident in planning educational activities so that the individual students’ needs with disabilities are adequately met by the EEDPI with the feeling of preparation for school inclusion.

It should be noted that in school environments, the items 5 and 10 may become less challenging for regular classroom teachers if they have a collaborative support network of professionals in the institution where they work (management, specialist teacher, other professionals) or experience co-teaching experiences (Vilaronga, Mendes, & Zerbato, 2016).

The item 11 - I am able to make children follow the classroom rules was positively correlated with job satisfaction in teaching in general, demonstrating that more regulated environments and with less disturbing behavior make the teachers involved more secure.

In addition, in this research, a high level of significance was obtained for the relation with the level of satisfaction with teaching and the age of the teacher. That is, it can be inferred that older teachers are more satisfied with their teaching work than younger ones. In national and international research on self-efficacy for inclusive practices (Martins, 2018; Sharma, Loreman, & Forlin, 2012; Loreman, Sharma & Forlin, 2013; Shaukat, Sharma, & Furlonger, 2013) the authors did not find significant differences in the level scale self-efficacy according to the participant’s age group.

With low statistical significance (p<0.05), the PAEE student’s feeling of preparedness for school inclusion was positively correlated with the level of satisfaction with teaching, teaching time and the total the EEDPI value. That is, among the participants in this research, the more the professor feels prepared to include PAEE students, the more satisfied he is with teaching.

This data is understandable, considering that the scale used aims to measure self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986) in inclusive practices of this teacher, which is precisely his judgment in his ability to promote inclusive environments, learning, regardless of the challenges encountered in the context who teaches.

The level of satisfaction with teaching also showed a positive correlation with time spent teaching and with item 7 - I am confident in my ability to avoid disturbing behavior in the classroom. Item 10 - I am confident in planning educational activities so that the individual needs of students with disabilities are adequately met with age correlated positively with the teacher’s age.

Unlike the others mentioned, item 14 - I am confident in my ability to make students work together in pairs or in small groups was negatively correlated with the time working in the same school grade that the teacher taught in 2019. These variables correlate inversely, that is, teachers who have been teaching for a longer time in the same school grade in which they worked in 2019 felt less confident in proposing and carrying out activities involving pairs or small groups among students, perhaps because they had gone through direct or vicarious experiences (Bandura, 1986) of failure in similar contexts.

According to data in Table 5, item 11 - I am able to make children follow the rules of the EEDPI classroom, showed a trend towards a positive correlation with the teacher’s feeling of preparation for school inclusion of PAEE students.

The item 8 - I manage to control disturbing behavior in the classroom and the total value of the EEDPI, showed a trend towards a positive correlation with the level of satisfaction with the teaching job.

Table 5
Coefficients with Trend Correlation (+p<0.1) between Characterization Variables and EEDPI.

Varibles	Feeling of preparation for school inclusion	Level of satisfaction with teaching work	Titration	Time acting in the same school year that taught 2019
EEDPI Item 6			-,283+
EEDPI Item 7
EEDPI Item 8		,266+
EEDPI Item 10
EEDPI Item 11	,290+
EEDPI Item 13				-,282+
EEDPI Item 15				-,294+
EEDPI total value		,254+

• Source: The author.

It is noted, therefore, that the more teachers feel prepared for inclusion, the more likely they are to control behaviors considered disruptive in the classroom, possibly because they have strategies to be applied with students who have behavior problems and feel confident when applying them. Satisfaction with the teaching work also helped teachers in the sense of self-efficacy in relation to following the students’ rules, suggesting that teachers who are more satisfied with their profession create environmental contingencies that make it easier for students to follow rules or that they know how to handle rules more in the classroom.

The item 6 - I can propose suitable challenges to very capable EEDPI students, showed a negative correlation trend with the teacher’s title. Considering the participants’ continuing education, who mostly indicated specializations related to areas of special education (64%) and the negative trend with this item, two extremes of interpretation can be inferred.

This result, therefore, may be related to the focus on PAEE students with disabilities or global developmental disorders to the detriment of those with high skills/giftedness in training courses, as identified by Pérez and Freitas (2011). On the contrary, it may be related to academic clarification regarding the complexity of the challenges that teachers may encounter in inclusive contexts to actually guarantee the learning of all students, from those with the highest level of difficulty to those with high abilities/giftedness.

Item 13 - I am able to work together with other professionals and staff (e.g. aides, other teachers) to teach students with disabilities in the classroom and item 15 - I am able to use a variety of assessment strategies (e.g. portfolio assessment, adapted tests, performance-based assessment, etc.), showed a negative correlation trend with the variable of teaching time in the same school grade that worked in 2019.

It can be understood that, the longer the time the teacher works in the same school grade and, sometimes, in the same school institution, the less he believes collaboration among peers or other professionals or in diversified assessments is possible, which may be related precisely by probable direct, vicarious experiences and verbal persuasion (Bandura, 1986) of failure in similar contexts in that particular school unit.

Considering the school unit as a space of collective effort, another factor that may be related to the result of the influence of the time of performance in the same school unit is the understanding of what Bandura (1977) calls collective effectiveness. In this sense, this differs from self-efficacy, as beliefs are shared towards the common goals of that group.

In the school space, for example, Botti-Manoel, Bzuneck and Scacchetti (2016) concluded that the collective effectiveness of Elementary School 1 teachers is statistically correlated with the perception of support at school and varies depending on the success experiences of teachers with students, which was measured using the scores in official school assessments.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

This article aimed to compare the sense of self-efficacy of Pre-School and Elementary School I teachers to teach PAEE students in the regular classroom of the municipal public network and to relate the sense of self-efficacy with demographic data and the teachers’ professional performance.

The Social Cognitive Theory proposed by Bandura (1986, 1997), of which the construct of self-efficacy is a part, has been consolidated internationally (Gibbs, 2003; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2007;) and also nationally (Azzi, 2014; Bzuneck , 2017) as a relevant variable in the teachers’ performance, regardless of the teaching stage.

Specifically in relation to the school inclusion of PAEE students, studies such as Alnahdi (2019), Martins (2018), Romero-Contreras et al. (2013) who carried out translations and cross-cultural the TEIP adaptations (Sharma, Loreman, & Forlin, 2012) demonstrated the instrument’s internal reliability to foster discussions about the subject. Specifically at the national level, Martins and Chacon (2019) point to a growing number of publications that bring theory closer to Special Education.

The present study sought to contribute to the reflection about the relevance of teachers’ training, mainly regarding the approximation between published academic research and the needs arising from the daily teachers’ practice who are in action, as it has already highlighted by Gatti (2017). The self-efficacy construct proposed by Bandura (1986, 1997) allows the justification of this need, in view of the author’s statement that self-efficacy is a predictor of behaviors and refers to a specific domain, and it can be modeled according to demand ( Bandura, 1986, 1997).

Based on Bandura (1986, 1997), therefore, it can be understood that for contexts of school inclusion of the PAEE student, the skills and competences in teaching and the knowledge of the main characteristics of the different disabilities are relevant aspects in teaching, but not unique. For teachers to feel confident during teaching, they also need to believe that they are capable of planning and teaching the PAEE student in a regular classroom to carry out teaching actions, maintain motivation in the strategies used and learn from experiences in that context.

The results presented in this study corroborate with a signal of the power and sensitivity of the EEDPI (Martins, 2018) for the evaluation of teachers’ self-efficacy for inclusive practices. However, despite the demographic advance compared to the data by Martins (2018), they are concentrated in a particular environment, with a specific number of teachers from the same municipality and active in specific school stages.

For future studies, it is suggested expanding the sample and more detailed analyzes associating the items proposed in the EEDPI with Bandura’s theory (1986), mainly in relation to their content with the sources of self-efficacy modeling. In addition, studies that mix data in a quantitative and qualitative scope, as it has already indicated by Loreman, Sharma and Forlin (2013).

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• 1
  Self-efficacy Scale for the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities in Physical Education Classes.
• 2
  Autism Self-Efficacy Scale for Teachers.
• 3
  Teachers were questioned about receiving enrollment of PAEE students in the regular classroom and three of them indicated students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, because these students probably receive some kind of specialized educational assistance backed by municipal legislation, even though they are not contemplated as a PAEE student by current federal legislation (BRASIL, 2015, 2020

• This research received financial support from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel - Brazil (CAPES) - CAPES/PROEX. Process No 23038.005155/2017-67.
• 7
  This paper was translated from Portuguese by Ana Maria Pereira Dionísio.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  10 Nov 2023
• Date of issue
  2023

History

• Received
  19 Mar 2020
• Accepted
  06 Mar 2021