Assessing General Education and Special Education Majors' Self-Efficacy for Teaching Reading

Overview & Synopsis

In an era of teacher quality reforms, one overlooked area for assessing readiness for teaching is education majors' self-efficacy for teaching reading. This gap is unfortunate, as teaching reading is a common responsibility among general and special education teachers. In the current push for RTI--one in which more general education teachers are increasingly called upon to provide reading support to students with learning disabilities, in addition to the support received from special educators--it is important to determine preservice teachers' self-efficacy for teaching reading. Self-efficacy is an important construct to consider as it is related to eventual teacher attrition. The purpose of the current study was to develop a scale to measure elementary and special education majors' self-efficacy for teaching reading. With a sample of 110 education majors, a three-factor scale was developed and demonstrated strong psychometric properties. Implications for the future of teacher education programs are discussed.