Making explicit pre-service teachers’ implicit beliefs about inclusive education

ABSTRACT

The present study investigated the development of pre-service teachers’ skills, beliefs and knowledge about inclusive education. At Time 1, pre-service teachers completed questionnaires on their beliefs and wrote a Teaching Philosophy. At Time 2, they identified differences in their responses from Time 1 to Time 2. Overall, teacher candidates reported an increased sense of self-efficacy in inclusive practice. Their beliefs about learning and teacher responsibility remained largely unchanged. Teacher candidates advocated strongly for student-centred learning and inclusive practices. However, they became significantly more self-assured about their initial position and felt that they had more resources to teach their inclusive beliefs in the classroom.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• self-efficacy
• beliefs about teaching and learning
• pre-service teachers

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Bailey Frid and Katherine Schmidt for their help with data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Deanna Friesen is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario.

Doris Cunning is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario.