Special Education Teacher Preparation: The Role of Teacher Self-Efficacy

Special Education Teacher Preparation

Introduction

Special education has become more specialized and complex, requiring high-level skills in designing, delivering, and determining the efficacy of Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).
Policy changes (Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, Every Student Succeeds Act) and court cases (Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, 2017) have reinforced the purpose of special education.
Special educators are expected to support students in demonstrating measurable progress toward individualized goals and meeting rigorous grade-level standards.
They also work across collaborative teams and instructional settings to support access to inclusive environments.
Teacher preparation is crucial for meeting the demand for a highly skilled, efficacious workforce.
Training shapes novices’ skills and self-efficacy, enhances their ability to provide effective instruction, and is associated with student achievement.
Preparation is a developmental process involving structured opportunities to learn (OTL) to develop the knowledge, beliefs, and skills necessary for the profession.
Understanding how individual teacher candidates experience OTL is important, necessitating identifying and responding to the beliefs that shape how individual candidates engage with learning experiences.
Limited research explores how beliefs influence preparation experiences prior to entering the field.

Study Overview

The study examines teacher self-efficacy (TSE) as a lens through which candidates make sense of OTLs in special education teacher preparation.
It addresses the gap in the literature regarding the interaction between the individual candidate and preparation experiences.
The research uses survey and interview data from special education teacher candidates across six preparation programs.
The study explores how candidates with differing levels of TSE experience preparation.
Findings suggest that TSE shapes how candidates make sense of preparation and what they take up from their opportunities to learn.
Candidates with low and high TSE differed in how they reported on their learning opportunities and how they interpreted these opportunities as shaping their future practice.

Conceptual Framework

Opportunities to Learn (OTL)

Teacher preparation is a powerful tool for improving the efficacy of the special education teacher workforce.
OTL includes methods coursework, clinical placements and learning with cooperating teachers, and university supervision.
The nature of candidates’ OTL has implications for their knowledge of the profession and their eventual enactment of practice in K–12 settings.
OTL are more than a tally of topics and preparation experiences; the nature and quality of OTL are associated with outcomes, including beginning teacher instructional quality, retention, and effectiveness.
Greater opportunities to engage with representations, decompositions, and approximations of mathematics teaching practices are associated with higher levels of mathematical knowledge for teaching.
Beginning teachers received higher classroom observation ratings and value-added scores in mathematics and English language arts when they completed student teaching placements with cooperating teachers who received higher observation ratings and value-added scores.
Mentor teacher effectiveness in mathematics was significantly associated with novice teacher effectiveness in mathematics, and mentor effectiveness in English language arts was modestly associated with novice teacher effectiveness in English language arts.

Role of Individual Characteristics in Candidates’ Learning

The candidate—and the beliefs they bring to their experience of OTL—is an important part of understanding how to improve preparation.
Preparation is not a unidirectional process in which OTL are provided to candidates and practice is, thus, improved.
OTL are part of a developmental process complicated by how candidates make sense of OTL.
Candidates' beliefs about students, teaching, and learning shaped how they framed and solved problems in field placements.
Candidates’ identity shaped their learning and the extent to which they would take up or reject reform-oriented science teaching practices.
Personality characteristics explained up to 40% of the variation in candidates’ reporting of OTL, even when candidates were provided with the same OTL; candidates with higher levels of neuroticism reported less robust OTL.
Personal qualities such as reflectiveness, dedication, confidence, and initiative shaped candidates’ appropriation of practice.
Candidates who were “open to challenging situations” and “actively [sought] answers to their questions” appropriated practice in more sophisticated ways.
The extent to which candidates’ appropriated tools interacted with beliefs about themselves, teaching practice, and personal and professional dispositions.

Teacher Self-Efficacy (TSE) as an Influential Characteristic

Self-efficacy, an individual’s beliefs about their own ability to succeed at a given task (Bandura, 1997), could be a particularly powerful lever for understanding how candidates take up and make sense of OTL.
Self-efficacy is an agentic belief that involves reflection on and regulation of self.
An individual with high self-efficacy is able to assess their capability and then plan for improvement.
OTL increases or decreases self-efficacy, which alters the individual’s experiential lens by influencing the effort, persistence, and resilience with which they approach a given task and the level of emotional distress they are willing to endure to perform the task in the future.
Self-efficacy is context and domain specific; in special education, self-efficacy is likely complicated by the intensity and complexity of student need.
Teachers with higher TSE are more willing to take on new methods.
They also report greater organization, clarity, and enthusiasm when implementing instructional plans.
Teachers with high TSE are more likely to use mastery goal structures in their practice and are more likely to have a classroom environment characterized by warmth, responsiveness, enthusiasm, support, and efficient time use.
A special education major and years of training were associated with higher levels of TSE.
TSE is not meaningfully altered by specific courses.
The extant research fails to account for the ways that TSE—and accompanying agentic beliefs—might alter the teacher candidates’ experiential lens and does little to inform our thinking regarding how to structure OTL to support candidates with varying TSE in making sense of preparation.

Purpose of the Study

The study considers the role of special education teacher candidates’ TSE in making sense of the OTL provided in preparation.
Research questions:
- How does special education teacher candidates’ TSE influence their experience of pre-service OTL?
- How do candidates with different levels of TSE describe their OTL?
- In what ways do candidates connect OTL to feelings of preparedness for the profession?

Method

Overview

The analysis draws on survey and interview data from a larger study of special education teacher preparation and how candidates’ experiences are related to their beliefs about students, teaching, and learning in special education.
A mixed-methods sequential explanatory design was employed, in which quantitative analyses generate questions that are answered through qualitative methods.
Data were collected from special education teacher candidates across six traditional, university-based special education teacher preparation programs.
Phase 1: Surveyed 88 candidates regarding their preparation experiences.
Phase 2: Interviewed a sub-sample of 20 candidates to understand how their OTL contributed to their conception of teaching and their beliefs about students and practice; 10 participants were purposefully selected for inclusion based on measures of TSE.

Site

Traditional special education preparation programs with institutional commitments to research and teaching in the U.S. Midwest, South, and Mid-Atlantic regions were included.
With the exception of Program F, all sites were public.
All universities were in the top 100, nationally or regionally.
All programs represented traditional routes to teaching; alternative or residency programs were excluded.
Candidates would earn a master’s degree for their initial certification with a focus on mild or moderate disabilities and have the option of dual certification in general/special education.
Candidates participated in a cohort model in which they shared coursework, engaged in field placements prior to internships, and accessed inclusive and resource settings for field work.
All sites relied heavily on face-to-face coursework but utilized online courses to varying degrees.

Phase 1: Surveys of Special Education Teacher Candidates

Survey data were collected from SETCs across the six preparation programs.
All candidates who had completed their student teaching but were not yet employed as full-time teachers were included in recruitment efforts.
Participants were primarily White and female.
Surveys were collected online via Qualtrics in the summer of 2017.
Participants received a $25 gift card for completing the survey.
A total sample of 90 was achieved, with a 60% response rate across all preparation programs; two surveys were removed due to incomplete responses for a final sample of 88.

Data and Measures

The survey was informed by scales developed for use in general education and was modified to highlight preparation for special education.
Scales addressed OTL instructional and collaborative practice in methods courses, experiences of support with cooperating teachers and university supervisors, and candidates’ TSE.
Opportunities to learn: Preparation: Candidates responded to survey questions about the extent of their OTL practices for collaboration and instruction during preparation, reflecting the high-leverage practices for instruction and collaboration in special education (McLeskey et al., 2017).
- The question stem asked, “Up to this point in your teacher education program, how much opportunity have you had to learn about the following topics”
- Response categories were across a five-point ordinal scale: none, touched on it briefly, spent time discussing it, spent time discussing and doing it, and extensive opportunity to practice and receive feedback.
- The OTL collaboration scale included two factors: OTL collaboration with staff (3 items; e.g., “Collaboration with general education colleagues”; factor reliability = 0.85) and OTL collaboration with IEP teams (4 items; e.g., “Interpreting and communicating assessment information to IEP team members and families’’; factor reliability = 0.89).
- The OTL general instruction scale included one factor with 10 items (e.g., “Identifying long- and short-term learning goals for students”; factor reliability = 0.92); and the OTL explicit instruction scale included one factor composed of eight items (e.g., “Providing opportunities for students to engage in guided practice”; factor reliability = 0.94).
Opportunities to learn: University supervisors and cooperating teachers: Candidates responded to 10 items using a four-point Likert-type scale, indicating the extent of their agreement with a statement regarding their supervisor’s or cooperating teacher’s expertise and skills.
- The items asked candidates to reflect on the extent to which they experienced university supervisors and cooperating teachers as trustworthy, collaborative experts who provided feedback and, in the case of the cooperating teacher, as models of instructional practice consistent with their preparation program (Bandura, 1997).
- Beliefs about the expertise and skills of their supervisor (e.g., “My supervisor understood the needs of students with disabilities”; factor reliability = 0.92) or cooperating teacher (e.g., “My cooperating teacher gave me useful feedback with regard to teaching students with disabilities”; factor reliability = 0.96).
Teacher self-efficacy: Using the Ohio State Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale: Short Form (OSTES; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001), candidates’ TSE was measured.
- In this 12-item survey, participants indicate their perceived capability on a nine-point scale.
- The OSTES addresses three constructs: classroom management (e.g., “How much can you do to get children to follow classroom rules?”), strategies for engagement (e.g., “How much can you do to motivate students who show low interest in schoolwork?”), and instructional strategies (e.g., “To what extent can you craft good questions for your students?”).
- A one-factor solution composed of all 12 items was used.

Analytic Approach (Phase 1)

Linear composites were constructed regarding factors relevant to the conceptual framework (i.e., OTL general instruction, explicit instruction, and collaboration in methods courses; OTL in university supervision; OTL with cooperating teachers) by calculating means and standard deviations.
Descriptive analyses of the full-scale OSTES were used to construct groups, based on their distance from the mean ( $M = 7.616$ , $SD = .881$ ).
SETCs with composite scores within one standard deviation of the mean were assigned to the moderate TSE group.
SETCs whose scores fell more than one SD below the mean were assigned to the low group (i.e., $<6.735$ ) and those whose scores fell more than one SD above the mean were assigned to the high group (i.e., $>8.497$ ).
From the full sample, 14 candidates reported high TSE, 58 reported moderate TSE, and 16 reported low TSE.
Across programs, candidates reported varying levels of TSE.
A Kruskal–Wallis test was conducted to compare scores across the three groups to determine if there were differences in candidates’ perceptions of OTL.
Pairwise comparisons were tested using Dunn’s (1964) procedure with a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons (with an alpha level of 0.0167) when the Kruskal–Wallis test indicated a significant difference.
The mean ranks were compared instead of the median scores, as represented by the composite scores.

Phase 2: Interviews With Special Education Teacher Candidates

SETCs were asked whether they would be willing to participate in Phase 2 at the survey conclusion.
20 participants were selected for interviews based on TSE level and preparation program (i.e., university affiliation).
The OSTES data were used to identify a purposeful stratified sub-sample at three levels (Onwuegbuzie & Collins, 2007); each strata represented SETCs with high, moderate, or low teacher self-efficacy.
Interview participants were drawn proportionally across programs.
Data collection continued until data saturation was evident.
After each interview, analytic memos were constructed
The first and third authors determined the point of saturation
Participants were primarily female and White
The sample was narrowed to 10 for analytic decisions based on TSE

Instrumentation

A semi-structured interview protocol was used to probe candidates’ experiences of OTL across preparation.
The interviewer reviewed each participant’s survey responses to identify the extent of their various OTL and whether these varied across experiences in coursework, with university supervisors, and with cooperating teachers prior to the interview.
During interviews, the interviewer elicited SETCs’ perspectives on their OTL and the ways they influenced candidates’ feelings of preparedness for the work of special education.
The interviewer probed for how participants felt their TSE was influenced by OTL.
After the interview, the interviewer constructed a memo that included possible themes and codes and noted questions raised.
Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and uploaded to Dedoose for analysis.

Analysis

All high (n = 6) and low (n = 4) TSE cases from the larger interview sample were selected for analytic comparison, using maximum variation sampling (Patton, 2002).
Generalist qualitative methods were used, combining deductive and inductive logic, to explore how candidates described their OTL and the way OTL was associated with their feelings of preparedness for special education.
- Deductive codes were applied to the data, aligned with the dimensions of the conceptual framework. These codes included candidates’ experiences of OTL regarding instruction and collaboration in (a) methods courses, (b) university supervision, and (c) field placements with their cooperating teachers, and also (d) candidates’ TSE and beliefs about their capability to take on the profession.
- Deductive codes were applied to all interview transcripts and remained consistent across analysis.
- Based on participants’ TSE composites from the survey, deductively coded interview excerpts were organized by TSE strata (i.e., low and high TSE groups).
- For each group, extracted excerpts by code group were inductively coded.
- Analytic memos were constructed for each case by group, and data were reduced to case-by-case assertions in data matrices (Miles et al., 2014).
- For each group, the data matrices were compared within and across groups to identify patterns in the data.
- Each transcript was reread to ensure assertions were robust, and individual candidates’ survey data were reviewed.
The transcripts were reread to find any evidence that disconfirms the data
Analytic memo and a copy of the interview transcript was provided to all interviewees

Enhancing Trustworthiness and Credibility

The study relied heavily on collaboration throughout the research (weekly meetings between the first two authors and the third author served as a peer debriefer)
Throughout the research process, the team challenged assumptions, probed for bias, and posed alternative explanations for findings
The first author provided all interviewees with an analytic memo and a copy of their interview transcript, and asked for feedback

Researcher Positionality

All the authors are White; two identify as women and one as a man.
All the authors have experience as elementary educators in varied settings (i.e., urban, suburban, rural), and have experience as special educators.
The assumption is that teacher preparation is a formative experience, occurring across coursework and field experiences.
Coherence across experiences positively shapes candidates’ development.
The constructivist theory focuses on how candidates make sense of OTL salient to their experiences.

Findings

Phase 1: Influence of TSE in Experiences of OTL

Results of the Kruskal–Wallis test indicated statistically significantly different OTL scores between the TSE groups:
- Collaboration IEP Teams, $\chi^2(2) = 11.120$ , $p = .004$
- OTL General Instruction, $\chi^2(2) = 13.459$ , $p = .001$
- OTL Explicit Instruction, $\chi^2(2) = 6.962$ , $p = .031$
- OTL University Supervision, $\chi^2(2) = 11.308$ , $p = .004$
- OTL Mentoring from Cooperating Teacher, $\chi^2(2) = 7.415$ , $p = .025$
There were no statistically significant differences between TSE groups for OTL Collaboration with Staff, $\chi^2(2) = 5.401$ , $p = .067$
Post hoc analyses revealed statistically significant differences in the mean rank between low and high groups and low and moderate groups for OTL Collaboration IEP Teams, General Instruction, University Supervision, and Cooperating Teacher scales.
There was a statistically significant difference between low and high TSE groups but not between low and moderate or moderate and high groups for OTL Explicit Instruction.

Phase 2: Examining Descriptions of OTL Across TSE Groups

Based on findings from Phase 1, qualitative analysis focused on differences between how candidates with low (n = 4) and high (n = 6) TSE interpreted OTL.
Three themes were identified: connecting OTL, establishing professional expectations for advocacy, and responding to feedback.
Under each of these themes, candidates’ TSE contributed to how they made sense of OTL and informed their beliefs about their future work.

Connecting OTL

Across groups, candidates connected their OTL to the development of TSE.
Their most valuable OTL included cyclical, increasingly complex experiences that targeted a certain practice or set of practices.
Consistent with the enactive mastery dimension of Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy (1997), SETCs in both groups noted how the most prominent cycles of OTL included seeing a model of practice when they were first learning, having the opportunity to enact practices in authentic settings (e.g., practicum placements and internships), and receiving feedback on their performance.
The difference in their understanding lay in the extent to which they connected OTL to make sense of their ability to enact practice as future special educators.

Low TSE: Connecting OTL to Self-Efficacy

Despite reporting similar experiences to those of candidates in the high group, candidates with low TSE doubted their ability.
They did not express a connection between OTL and their feelings of TSE and believed their OTL were insufficient.
Candidates with low TSE interpreted OTL as a source of very specific skills—such as teaching certain phonemes or long division—as opposed to developing their broad capabilities and dispositions as special educators.
They saw OTL as providing them with techniques or tricks that they could employ in specific classroom situations but paid little attention to how individual OTL were connected to the broader construct of effective teaching.

High TSE: Connecting OTL to Self-Efficacy

Most candidates with high TSE reported leaving their TPP feeling “equipped with the skills” (Natalie) necessary to be an effective special education teacher.
They saw their OTL as an avenue through which they had already built a lasting sense of efficacy that would carry them through the challenges of special education.
They spoke about feelings of ineffectiveness in the past tense instead of in the present or future tense.
For candidates with high TSE, confidence came from seeing their individual OTL as illustrative of principles of effective teaching in special education and applying these principles to their work with students.
In contrast to candidates with low TSE, who found momentary confidence in gathering specific techniques and tricks, these candidates developed confidence and connected these discrete skills with underlying principles of effective teaching across content areas and contexts.
As candidates’ TSE was strengthened through cyclical OTL, their belief in the efficacy of these frameworks and their power to enact them as agents of change in the classroom was also strengthened.

Professional Expectations

All interviewed candidates reported feeling as though the work of special education was valuable and challenging.
Depending on TSE level, they framed the source of that challenge—and their resultant response—quite differently.

Low TSE: Professional Expectations

SETCs in the low TSE group spoke about the work of special education as intimidating and repeatedly noted an expectation of professional struggle in the workplace.
They used the words conflict and fight when referring to their past and future experiences of advocacy in schools.
They drew on examples from lectures and field placements as they spoke about mentally preparing for what they perceived would be contentious advocacy in their future profession.
Because these candidates anticipated a fight or discord, they believed they would experience less success as special educators due to constrained agency.

High TSE: Professional Expectations

Candidates with high TSE noted that the collaborative work of special education was potentially challenging, their understanding of this challenge was not defined by conflict and discord.
They saw advocacy as collaborative.
For candidates with high TSE, interviews included scant discussion of conflict.
They emphasized advocacy in collaborative relationships where they could exercise agency.
They anticipated that listening and responding to others was crucial to meeting students’ needs.

Use of Feedback

Across interviews, candidates referred to feedback from faculty, university supervisors, and cooperating teachers as an important OTL in their individual development.
How they used feedback—and how this contributed to the development of TSE—varied across groups.

Low TSE: Use of Feedback

SETCs in the low TSE group discussed feedback as a form of external evaluation.
They interpreted feedback as a space where others would offer judgment on performance, indicating what they should/should not do, instead of as an opportunity for self-directed professional growth.
These candidates entered OTL feeling like their every move would be judged.
Candidates in the low TSE group still valued feedback, but their need was specific; they discussed needing feedback as linked to their emotional experience of teaching.
Feedback was linked to emotional support.
Candidates found feedback to be helpful and important in their work, a way for others to offer corrections regarding their actions and to help them deal with experiences of stress and failure, rather than a way to spur them to make their own plans for professional development and growth.
When the feedback was not specific enough, they did not discuss using resources from other OTL, such as professors, textbooks, or peers.
They looked to cooperating teachers and supervisors for direction and were stymied when others did not offer direction.

High TSE: Use of Feedback

For candidates with high TSE, feedback was not a judgment of their capabilities but part of a broader, ongoing process of individual improvement.
These candidates used feedback as motivation to agentically set goals and develop plans to achieve those goals.
Candidates with high TSE framed themselves as agentic leaders in conversations with supervisors and cooperating teachers, not merely recipients of feedback.
They emphasized taking responsibility for reflecting on and planning from their successes and failures rather than just listening to others’ evaluations and subsequently applying others’ thoughts to their future work.
They discussed how, of their own volition, this included consulting with professors, cooperating teachers, and university supervisors to problem solve.
Candidates with high TSE saw their professors, cooperating teachers, and university supervisors as a resource for tools to improve their practice, not as a source of TSE or as emotional support.
They saw others’ feedback as a way to shape, or inform, their practice, not as a way to determine whether they were cut out for the job.

Disconfirming Evidence: The Case of Jenna

Jenna’s interview data did not fully reflect the same themes as others in the low TSE group; Jenna did not speak extensively about her own inadequacies, view feedback as evaluative or corrective, or characterize the work of special education as conflict ridden.
She did not fit with candidates in the high TSE group either; she did not display the same goal-oriented, problem-solving approach that was clear in their interview data.
Jenna’s instructional strategies score was above the mean for the low TSE group, but her classroom management and engagement strategies scores were both in the low TSE range for the individual factors.
It is possible that Jenna believed students’ engagement was fixed/internally attributed and experienced a constrained sense of TSE in these areas, compared to her TSE for instructional strategies, depressing her overall OSTES score.

Discussion

The study adds to the growing body of literature regarding the ways that individual characteristics could influence how candidates make sense of preparation and practice.
TSE is associated with meaningful differences in the ways that candidates make sense of learning, evident across both phases of the study.
These differences are found in how candidates with different levels of TSE coordinate OTL within broader frameworks of effective teaching, anticipate their future work as advocates, and draw on and respond to feedback regarding their performance.
Special education teacher preparation must prepare candidates for a role in which they are charged with delivering instruction across grade levels, content areas, and an array of complex student needs.
Novice special educators must be able to coordinate isolated OTL into a broader framework of effective teaching that can be applied across settings, collaborate with others to plan and enact IEPs, and then reflect and act upon their own professional successes and failures.
These skills are all necessary parts of effectively meeting the needs of SWD and are influenced by the lens through which candidates make sense of their OTL and are oriented to the inevitable challenges of the profession.

Implications for Research

Future research should include individual characteristics such as TSE as a moderator of candidates’ experiences.
Qualitative work to generate theory regarding individual characteristics that most powerfully influence preparation experiences.
Large-scale, multi-site quantitative studies to coordinate knowledge regarding the interaction between OTL and individual characteristics in producing meaningful outcomes.
Longitudinal designs should address novices’ beliefs and enacted practice to further our understanding of how beliefs interact with instructional quality.
Individuals’ agency, beliefs regarding attribution for student success and failure, and the ways these beliefs overlap with beliefs about disability should be examined.

Implications for Practice

Programs could benefit from identifying and responding to candidates’ needs across preparation.
Validated measures of individual characteristics such as TSE should be used.
Learner profiles developed from these measures could be used to inform program planning and attend to individual needs in teacher education.
Candidates with low TSE may benefit from explicit, intentional scaffolds across OTL that prime them to make connections between isolated OTL and broader heuristics about teaching and learning, to reframe advocacy as a primarily collaborative effort, and to draw on feedback as a tool for goal-oriented professional improvement.
Most candidates would not require individualized support, but those with low TSE could benefit from specific, scaffolded support.

Limitations

The purposeful focus on traditional teacher preparation programs focuses and constrains the analysis; future research could examine the role of beliefs in alternative pathways.
The small sample size limits our ability to generalize beyond the six included programs.
The selected preparation programs ranged in size; this precluded us from examining differences between and across programs.
The sample lacked diversity and predominantly reflected the perspectives of White women; future research should endeavor to include more diverse perspectives.
The study did not observe SETCs’ practices.

Conclusion

Teacher candidates are learners who learn to teach through a bidirectional process between their beliefs and their OTL.
The beliefs they bring to preparation are an influential factor in how they experience learning and enhance their success as future professionals.
The ways in which we prepare educators and conduct research regarding preparation should reflect and account for their personal characteristics, particularly powerful beliefs like TSE, and how this influences their engagement in OTL across preparation.