New Perspectives in Science Education

Following school law, barrier-free and equal access to education is guaranteed to all students. However, in Biology education there might be some obstacles for students with special needs, e.g. during experiments or field trips. This results in our research questions: 1) How do biology preservice teachers rate different inclusive settings? 2) Do attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs influence their ratings? 3) Which reasons are given for and against inclusion by preservice teachers? Positive attitudes are expected to be predictors for the implementation of inclusive structures at school (cf. Bosse & Spörer, 2014). Self-efficacy beliefs describe the personal judgement, how well a person can execute courses of action that are required to deal with prospective situations (cf. Bandura, 1982). These beliefs are assumed to be fundamental for education and teaching (cf. Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 2002). Therefore, we expected attitudes and self-efficacy to be positive predictors for preservice teachers` ratings of inclusive settings. Our sample consisted of 119 pre-service biology teachers (Mage=20,5 years; nfemale=95). Following Seifried, we confronted participants with four vignettes and asked them to rate each setting with ten bipolar adjectives, e.g. positive – negative (α = .885, α = .867, α = .934, α = .928). A self-report questionnaire was applied on attitudes (three subscales; each 4 items; α=.690/.770/.727) and self-efficacy (three subscales; each 4 items; α =.690/.727/.770) towards inclusive schooling (0=do not agree; 5=completely agree) (cf. Bosse & Spörer 2014). Findings show that the vignettes were rated differently (F(2.7, 308.0) = 8.98, p < .001). Most positively, a child with learning disability was rated, least positively a student with multiple disabilities. Overall, regression analyses revealed a significant influence of attitudes and self-efficacy on three settings (e.g. learning disability: R² = .28, F(6;108) = 6.95, P < .001). However, in most regression models only attitudes towards the arrangement of inclusive lessons became a significant predictor (β = .33, p = .024). At first glance, findings do not support the importance of self-efficacy beliefs. Since our pre-service teachers are freshmen, they might not have developed realistic self-efficacy beliefs, yet. 

Keywords: biology education, special needs, settings, attitudes, self-efficacy;