Early childhood Special education teachers' self-efficacy in relation to individual children: Links to children's literacy learning
Introduction
Federal legislation requires children with disabilities to be educated in general education classrooms with typically developing peers (Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, 2004). Nationally, more than 50% of all preschool children with disabilities are served in inclusive early childhood special education (ECSE) classrooms (US Department of Education, 2012). Complementing these initiatives are programmatic changes ensuring that every child in ECSE classrooms—those with learning difficulties, diagnosed disabilities, and from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds—can reach his or her full potential (Odom, Buysse, & Soukakou, 2011). There is a widespread agreement that teacher characteristics are important considerations for policymakers implementing early childhood programs (Early et al., 2006).
Of these characteristics, teacher self-efficacy, broadly defined as their self-referent judgment of capabilities (Bandura, 1995), is related to higher-quality classroom instruction and increased academic performance among children within preschool settings (Guo, Piasta, Justice, & Kaderavek, 2010) and in elementary schools (Goddard, Hoy, & Hoy, 2000; Guo, Connor, Yang, Roehrig, & Morrison, 2012; Throndsen & Turmo, 2013). For example, teacher self-efficacy was related to preschool children's print knowledge, an essential domain of early literacy skills (Guo et al., 2010). Print knowledge describes young children's emerging knowledge of the forms and functions of written language (Storch & Whitehurst, 2002) and includes children's letter knowledge, their knowledge of various print concepts, and their production of print using writing (Justice, Pullen, & Pence, 2008). Numerous studies and several meta-analyses suggest that young children's print knowledge is one of the more reliable and robust indicators of later reading skills (e.g., Hammill, 2004; Morris, Bloodgood, Lomax, & Perney, 2003; Schatschneider, Fletcher, Francis, Carlson, & Foorman, 2004). Consequently, teacher self-efficacy is considered as a crucial factor in improving teacher education and promoting educational reform in early education settings.
During the past two decades, teacher self-efficacy has been reconceptualized to reflect the understanding that teachers' efficacy beliefs are task- and context-specific (Bandura, 1997, Bandura, 2006, Chan, 2008; Dellinger, Bobbett, Olivier, & Ellett, 2008; Friedman and Kass, 2002, Tschannen-Moran and Hoy, 2001). Accordingly, researchers have moved beyond considering teacher self-efficacy as a global trait to examining teacher self-efficacy in specific tasks or contexts. For example, the construct of teacher self-efficacy has been expanded to tap efficacy beliefs in pedagogical domains. These domains include teachers' efficacy in managing classrooms, engaging students, teaching subject matter, and teaching to accommodate diversity (Bandura, 1997, Bandura, 2006, Chan, 2008, Tschannen-Moran and Hoy, 2001).
Parallel to this reconceptualization, researchers have recently used an innovative approach to examine teacher self-efficacy at the child level, referred to as child-specific teacher self-efficacy (Geerlings, Thijs, & Verkuyten, 2018; Sawyer et al., 2020; Schwab, 2019; Zee et al., 2016). Recent research shows that teachers feel less self-efficacious with children with problem behaviors or emotional disorders versus those without these difficulties (Schwab, 2019, Zee et al., 2016). Moreover, teachers' self-efficacy beliefs related to individual children may play a leading role in teachers' behaviors and actions toward a particular child (Bandura, 1997, Zee et al., 2016). For a comprehensive understanding of teachers' abilities to effectively teach particular children, an examination of child-specific teacher self-efficacy may therefore be vital.
However, very few studies have examined teacher self-efficacy toward individual children, particularly in the context of inclusive ECSE classrooms. As described previously, inclusive ECSE classrooms serve children with diagnosed disabilities, including those with language impairment, autism, developmental delay, emotional disturbances, and other health impairments alongside typically developing peers. Given individual differences among children, ECSE teachers are challenged to provide individualized instruction or interaction to address the different learning needs related to disability (Odom et al., 2011). Such challenges may potentially cause the same teacher to experience different levels of self-efficacy while interacting with children with disabilities versus those without disabilities and hold different levels of self-efficacy in relation to children with different types of disabilities. The possibilities of different levels of self-efficacy ECSE teachers may experience in relation to individual children holds important implications, as they may provide insight into the type of factors that contribute to teachers' subjective experiences of dealing with disability in their classrooms. As such, there is a critical need to investigate ECSE teachers' self-efficacy at the level of individual children. To this end, the present study aims to examine whether ECSE teachers experience differences in self-efficacy in teaching children with and without disabilities and investigate the relations between teachers' self-efficacy in relation to individual children and children's literacy skills. We exclusively focus on children's print knowledge, given that the majority of children in inclusive ECSE programs exhibit delays in this domain (Justice, Bowles, & Skibbe, 2006).
Most research on teacher self-efficacy has been grounded on social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1977, Bandura, 1997, Bandura, 2006). Based on this theoretical perspective, teacher self-efficacy is defined as teachers' beliefs in their abilities to produce certain attainments (Bandura, 1977, Bandura, 1997). Bandura (2006) contended that self-efficacy beliefs are the most important cause of human behaviors and thus affect teachers' goals and behaviors, their choices of activities, how much effort is expended on an activity, and how long teachers will persevere when confronting obstacles. These conceptualizations provide a significant foundation for teacher self-efficacy research. More importantly, Bandura's work suggests that teacher self-efficacy is not an omnibus trait; instead, teacher beliefs may vary according to different tasks and circumstances (Bandura, 2006). Following this view, scholars started to assess teacher self-efficacy in multi-dimensional teaching situations (Chan, 2008; Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001; Tsouloupas, Carson, Matthews, Grawitch, & Barber, 2010). The most prominent work in this line of research was conducted by Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (2001). They treated teacher self-efficacy as a task-specific, three-dimensional construct reflecting three unique but interrelated domains of teaching: instructional strategies, classroom management, and student engagement. In addition to these three domains, other educational researchers have focused on teacher self-efficacy in specific content areas such as efficacy beliefs for teaching literacy (Tschannen-Moran & Johnson, 2011) and teaching math and science (Gerde, Pierce, Lee, & Van Egeren, 2018; Riggs & Enochs, 1990).
Researchers have recently considered teachers' child-specific self-efficacy. Different from teachers' general self-efficacy that captures their general beliefs of capability toward the whole class, teachers' child-specific self-efficacy focuses on their actual self-efficacy toward individual children. This new trend is based on transactional theory (Sameroff and Fiese, 2000, Sutherland and Oswald, 2005), suggesting that development is affected by the interaction between the child and the experiences provided by environment. In the context of teaching, not only is the child shaped by teacher beliefs or behaviors, but the child also affects teacher beliefs or behaviors. Specifically, children bring many individual behaviors and academic skills with them to the classroom that may impact teacher self-efficacy. In support of this, empirical studies have indicated that individual students with behavior problems are more likely to undermine teacher self-efficacy than students without such problems (Spilt & Koomen, 2009; Spilt, Koomen, & Thijs, 2011). Further, children's higher levels of engagement in activities were related to a higher level of teacher self-efficacy (Guo, Justice, Sawyer, & Tompkins, 2011; Newmann, Rutter, & Smith, 1989). These findings suggest that teachers' self-efficacy beliefs may vary for individual children within their classrooms.
Several researchers have examined teacher self-efficacy toward individual children (i.e., child-specific teacher self-efficacy) rather than children in general. Zee et al. (2016) adapted the Tschannen-Moran and Hoy's instrument to measure teacher self-efficacy at the child level in a sample of 69 Dutch elementary school teachers. They included three teaching domains (instructional strategies, classroom management, and student engagement) and added a fourth teaching domain—emotional support—that is critical for students' academic engagement and achievement (Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Oort, 2011). They found that teachers experienced different levels of self-efficacy with individual children in their classrooms. Geerlings et al. (2018) employed the same measure of child-specific teacher self-efficacy as Zee et al. (2016). They found that variability in teacher self-efficacy was strongly associated with differences at the child level among 40 Dutch teachers and that teachers felt less self-efficacious with ethnic minority versus majority students. Sawyer et al. (2020) translated the child-specific teacher self-efficacy measure of Zee et al. (2016) and used the adapted version in the sample of ECSE teachers within the United States. They found that ECSE teachers' self-efficacy significantly varied for children within their classrooms. Finally, Schwab (2019) examined the importance of child-specific teacher self-efficacy in regular and special education teachers who teach fourth-grade children from inclusive classrooms in Austria. This study used a short, adapted version of the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran and Hoy, 2001, Zee et al., 2016). Results showed that teachers' self-efficacy toward children with learning or behavioral disorders was lower than their self-efficacy toward children without these difficulties. Collectively, these studies support the importance of studying teacher self-efficacy specifically for each child.
A process-oriented framework has explained the complex ways in which teacher self-efficacy affects outcomes at the various levels of classroom ecology (Hoy, Hoy, & Davis, 2009). According to this theoretical framework, teacher self-efficacy is postulated to be a potential direct determinant of children's academic achievement (e.g., literacy, math), motivation, and their sense of efficacy. However, the extant literature regarding the degree and direction of associations between teachers' general self-efficacy and children's literacy achievement is largely equivocal. Some research studies supported the positive association between general self-efficacy of teachers and children's literacy achievement (Ashton & Webb, 1986; Goddard et al., 2000; Guo et al., 2010, 2012; Moolenaar, Sleegers, & Daly, 2012). For instance, Guo et al. (2010) examined the complex relations between preschool teachers' general self-efficacy and children's literacy outcomes. This study measured teachers' self-efficacy beliefs regarding the management and motivation of children in classrooms. Results demonstrated that general self-efficacy of preschool teachers was a significant and positive correlate of children's print knowledge. However, it is important to note that coefficients emerging from the studies focused on preschool and elementary schools are generally moderate, ranging from .02 to .04, indicating that the effect size of teachers' general self-efficacy on children's literacy outcomes is only small to moderate (Zee & Koomen, 2016). Conversely, several studies failed to confirm the direct relations between general self-efficacy of teachers and children's literacy outcomes (Guo, Dynia, Pelatti, & Justice, 2014; Heneman, Kimball, & Milanowski, 2006; Reyes, Brackett, Rivers, White, & Salovey, 2012). For example, Guo et al. (2014) examined ECSE teachers' general self-efficacy and found that ECSE teachers' perception of self-efficacy in maintaining classroom discipline was not directly related to the language skills of children with language impairment.
Moderate relations and non-significant relations reported from the studies examining teacher self-efficacy and children's literacy outcomes may be due to studies' methodological characteristics. The measures of teacher self-efficacy used in these studies tapped the domains of efficacy beliefs vital for successful teaching. However, they might not accommodate the specific domains (e.g., self-efficacy with respect to teaching literacy) that are conceptually proximal to children's literacy learning. This measurement problem may reduce the impact of teacher self-efficacy on children's literacy outcomes. In addition, these studies have more often focused on teachers' general self-efficacy at the classroom level and individual-levels of children's literacy outcomes, which may buffer the relations between teacher self-efficacy and children's literacy outcomes. Theoretical work suggests that teachers with higher self-efficacy for teaching have better child learning outcomes reflected as higher class-average achievement (Bandura, 1997, Hoy et al., 2009). Thus, teachers' general self-efficacy may be a powerful predictor of average children's achievement at the classroom level.
Moreover, teachers' general self-efficacy explained between-teacher variability rather than within-teacher variability. Empirical work supports the existence of within-teacher variability by showing that teachers can demonstrate different levels of self-efficacy when teaching different types of children and different content areas (Geerlings et al., 2018; Ross, Bradley Cousins, & Gadalla, 1996; Schwab, 2019). Two recent studies found that most of the variance in teacher self-efficacy occurred within teachers, and within-teacher variabilities were larger than that on the between-teacher level (Schwab, 2019, Zee et al., 2016). These findings are particularly important because they indicate a high relevance for measuring teacher self-efficacy concerning specific children.
The formation of teacher self-efficacy toward individual children builds on the self-efficacy formulation of Bandura (1997) and the model of teacher efficacy developed by Tschannen-Moran, Hoy, and Hoy (1998). Theoretically, teacher self-efficacy in relation to individual children may affect teachers' classroom behaviors towards a particular child as well as the effort teachers exert in teaching him or her and thus helps to explain the academic performance in individual children. Furthermore, this type of teacher self-efficacy allows us to investigate both between- and within-teacher variability in self-efficacy beliefs (Geerlings et al., 2018, Schwab, 2019, Zee et al., 2016). Therefore, we argue that teachers' efficacy beliefs related to individual children may be a meaningful addition to the construct of teacher self-efficacy, especially to increase the predictive power of teacher self-efficacy in individual children's academic achievement.
As discussed in the previous sections, inclusive ECSE classrooms serve children with and without disabilities. The individual differences among children within the classrooms may impact teacher self-efficacy and children's literacy outcomes. Research studies suggest that teachers' general self-efficacy is negatively related to teaching children with disabilities. For instance, Chung, Marvin, and Churchill (2005) found that a subsample of teachers who taught one or more children with disabilities had a lower level of self-efficacy than the mean of the full sample of early childhood teachers. One recent study found that children's disability status was significantly associated with child-specific teacher self-efficacy in the inclusive ECSE classrooms, with teachers rating themselves as less efficacious in teaching children who had disabilities than children who were typically developing (Sawyer et al., 2020). These findings indicate that ECSE teachers have differential levels of efficacy for children with disabilities and children who are typically developing.
Because inclusive ECSE classrooms serve preschoolers with disabilities representing a wide variety of physical, emotional, and cognitive disabilities, there is often heterogeneity in children's needs, behaviors, and learning outcomes. Accordingly, teachers may also experience different levels of self-efficacy in relation to children with different types of disabilities. Children with language impairment (LI) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are most frequently identified as participating in preschool inclusive settings (Odom et al., 2004). Children with LI present with substantially depressed language abilities in the absence of other frank neurological, sensory, motor, or intellectual impairments (Tomblin et al., 1997). In addition, considerable evidence suggests that children with LI exhibit interactional and social difficulties (Maggio et al., 2014, McCabe and Meller, 2004) and problematic levels of internalizing behaviors (Stanton-Chapman, Justice, Skibbe, & Grant, 2007). The array and variability of learning difficulties that constitute LI may hamper teachers' self-efficacy beliefs when interacting with the LI population. Another disability group, children with ASD, may be the most challenging group for teachers (Odom et al., 2004). Children diagnosed with ASD have impairments in social behavior, communication, speech, and general cognitive functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2000; Baranek, David, Poe, Stone, & Watson, 2006; Scheuermann & Webber, 2002). Thus, teachers may experience the lowest efficacy in teaching children with ASD among children with disabilities. It is unclear, however, whether ECSE teachers experience differences in self-efficacy when teaching children with LI, children with ASD, and children with other types of disabilities in their classrooms. Given the diversity in inclusive ECSE classrooms and the importance of teacher-efficacy for inclusive practices, a closer examination of this question is timely and pertinent.
The available research suggests that children's disability status is related to their literacy skills. Children with LI are at risk for lags in early literacy skills during the preschool years (Justice et al., 2006). Research studies on other populations of children with disabilities in inclusive ECSE classrooms (e.g., children with ASD, emotional disturbances) similarly have found that these children show significant lags in their attainment of early literacy skills and school readiness (e.g., Dynia, Bean, Justice, & Kaderavek, 2019; Dynia, Brock, Logan, Justice, & Kaderavek, 2016; Dynia, Lawton, Logan, & Justice, 2014; Nation, Clarke, Wright, & Williams, 2006; Nelson, Benner, & Gonzalez, 2005).
These studies suggest the potential differences in teacher self-efficacy and children's literacy achievement for children with versus without disabilities. It is logical to assume that children's disability status may impact the strength of relations between teacher self-efficacy and children's literacy outcomes. For example, the relations between teacher self-efficacy and children's literacy outcomes may be more pronounced for children with disabilities. There tend to be more children at the lower end of literacy achievement from children with disabilities than children who are typically developing. Given that children's literacy skills may evoke different responses from their teachers (Caprara, Barbaranelli, Steca, & Malone, 2006), teachers may feel less self-efficacious when working with children with disabilities and perceive themselves as less successful in teaching them, leading to lower literacy skills for this population. However, as best we know, no studies have systematically examined whether the relations between teacher self-efficacy and children's literacy outcomes vary for children with disabilities and typically developing peers.
In the present study, we aimed to extend the current literature by examining the complex relations between teacher self-efficacy at the child level and children's literacy outcomes (i.e., print knowledge) within inclusive ECSE classrooms. Rather than assessing teachers' general self-efficacy, we employed a newly developed instrument to measure teachers' self-efficacy in relation to individual children across the domains of behavioral management, student engagement, instructional strategies, and emotional support. All of these domains are considered essential for literacy learning in preschool children (e.g., Burchinal et al., 2008; Dobbs-Oates, Kaderavek, Guo, & Justice, 2011; Mashburn et al., 2008). Therefore, we addressed three research aims: (a) to examine whether teachers experience differences in self-efficacy when teaching children with and without disabilities and whether they experience differences in self-efficacy when teaching children with different types of disabilities (children with LI, children with ASD, and children with other types of disabilities), (b) to examine whether there are direct relations between child-specific teacher self-efficacy and children's print knowledge outcomes, and (c) to investigate whether and to what extent children's disability status moderates the relations between child-specific teacher self-efficacy and children's print knowledge outcomes.
Section snippets
Participants
Participants were recruited to participate in a large study on the feasibility of scaling up an evidence-based book-reading intervention (See Justice, Logan, Kaderavek, & Dynia, 2015, for a description of the intervention). Educational service centers in a Midwestern state provided permission to recruit ECSE teachers from their participating districts. All children in participating teachers' classrooms were eligible for participation, and parents of children in the teachers' classrooms provided
Descriptive statistics
The descriptive statistics of the literacy outcome variables were shown in Table 1 and Table 2. With the full sample, all literacy outcomes were moderately to strongly correlated, rs = .47 to .80, ps < .01, with rs = .49 to .59 for the three literacy outcomes in the baseline and rs = .50 to .64 in the posttest. We found moderately positive correlations between CSTSE and the literacy outcomes, with rs = .30 to .48.
Group differences on child-specific teacher self-efficacy
Two-factor nested analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were used to compare CSTSE scores
Discussion
This study provides the first investigation of ECSE teachers' self-efficacy beliefs toward individual children with disabilities and children who are typically developing. The results of this study yield three major findings. First, ECSE teachers held different self-efficacy beliefs for children with disabilities versus children who are typically developing and reported the lowest efficacy for teaching children with ASD among children with disabilities. Second, child-specific teacher
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Ying Guo: Conceptualization, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Jaclyn M. Dynia: Investigation, Project administration, Funding acquisition, Writing - originial draft, Writing - review & editing. Mark H.C. Lai: Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation, Writing - original draft.
Acknowledgements
The research was supported by the Ohio Department of Education. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Ohio Department of Education. We would like to thank project staff, as well as the many administrators, teachers, and children without whom this study would not be possible.
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