Special Education Teachers' Self-efficacy in Inclusive Schools During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of challenges in education settings especially for teachers arose due to the complexity of online learning. Notably, the issues surrounding online learning severely affected the special education teachers because of their reliance to assess and teach directly via a face-to-face method. In long term, the complexity of increased workloads and duties, preparing the lesson plan, and overseeing the lesson process might lead to teachers experiencing burnout and stress. One of the factors that might affect teachers’ burnout and job stress is self-efficacy. This study aims to explore the pandemic effect on special education teachers and how learning method changes affected their self-efficacy. This study was conducted in Surabaya, Indonesia, and involves four special education teachers from local junior high schools which have an inclusive program. The study is conducted with a qualitative method of focus group discussion (FGD). The questions for the participant were derived from the teacher efficacy for inclusive practice (TEIP) scale. The result was produced by analysing the coding and transcripts of the video and audio feed. The result revealed that based on three dimensions of teacher efficacy; efficacy in inclusive instructions, efficacy in collaboration, and efficacy in managing behaviour, the special education teachers’ self-efficacy worsened during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The implications and limitations of the research are discussed further in this manuscript.
 Keywords: Special education teacher, inclusive education, teacher self-efficacy, covid-19 pandemic