Teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs: a critical motivational factor in inclusive education

Abstract

Teachers are supposed to master teaching skills, but they have also to hold well established self-efficacy beliefs. That is, they must belief that they can accomplish successfully specific tasks even in classes with students’ large diversity. Researchers have documented Bandura’s proposal that teachers with strong self-efficacy beliefs think that all their students can learn and therefore they are more compromised and motivated for create conditions necessary for the development of every student in their classes. They are more persistent and more resilient after failures. Research findings have also supported Bandura’s claim that in school teachers must achieve a strong collective efficacy that influences every individual to be persistence after setbacks and to have higher expectancies for their pupils. In this paper conditions are showed to further individual and collective efficacy beliefs in Inclusive Education, so that benefits for all students be assured.