Teacher self-efficacy, inclusion and professional development practices: cultivating a learning environment for all

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Woodcock, Stuart
Hardy, Ian
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2023
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Abstract

This paper explores the nature of the relationship between teacher self-efficacy for inclusion in schools, and professional development practices. The research draws on qualitative data from a larger 3-year study involving 140 primary teachers in rural, regional and urban schools throughout the state of New South Wales, Australia. The article focuses upon the professional development practices of a sub-sample of teachers who identified as ‘highly efficacious’ (n = 21) in relation to inclusion and those who identified as ‘lower efficacious’ (n = 20). Drawing upon a broad thematic analytical approach, the research reveals the varied ways PD was experienced by more and less efficacious teachers. These experiences pertained to: 1) teachers’ categorisation of students on the basis of perceptions of students’ ‘needs’; 2) teachers’ approaches to classroom access and willingness to collaborate, and; 3) teachers’ roles and levels of engagement with professional development for inclusion (whether as facilitators or as passive recipients). In comparison with their less efficacious colleagues, more efficacious teachers adopted a more holistic and inclusive understanding of students’ needs in relation to the PD they experienced, engaged with other teachers in ways that were more mutually beneficial, and took more facilitative rather than passive roles in relation to their PD experiences.

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Professional Development in Education

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© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

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This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advanced online version.

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Education systems

Specialist studies in education

Social Sciences

Education & Educational Research

Teacher self-efficacy

inclusion

professional development

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Woodcock, S; Hardy, I, Teacher self-efficacy, inclusion and professional development practices: cultivating a learning environment for all, Professional Development in Education, 2023

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