Investigation of the changes of preservice teachers\u27 efficacy beliefs in teaching students with special needs

This study was designed to examine preservice teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs in teaching students with special needs during student teaching. The participants were preservice teachers in one of a university in the Midwest who enrolled in the student teaching program in Spring 2018 and taught students with special needs in their classroom(s). Collecting data, this study employed surveys and interviews to gather information about preservice teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and how it changed over student teaching. In order to examine the preservice teachers’ self-efficacy in the first placement, descriptive statistics and paired t-tests were employed. The interview data was analyzed through systematic qualitative analysis. The results of this study indicate that at the end of the first placement, preservice teachers perceived high efficacy in all areas, more specifically they were higher in providing support (μ = 5.81) and professionalism (μ = 6.44). Also, the four interview participants reported a lack of entry level knowledge and skills in teaching students with special needs and in collaborating with other teachers at the beginning of the first placement. At the end of the second placement, there was a significant improvement of preservice teachers’ self-efficacy in the area of classroom management (t (40) = 2.245, p \u3c 0.05, d = 0.35), whereas the qualitative data revealed improvement in the other areas. Implications for teacher preparation programs and future research are presented