Investigating confidence and efficacy of special education preservice teachers in traditional and alternative teacher education programs in Taiwan

Scope and method of study. The purpose of this study is to investigate the confidence and the efficacy of special education preservice teachers trained in traditional and alternative teacher education programs in Taiwan. The theory of efficacy belief in social learning theory is used as theory based in the study. Teacher efficacy has been identified as a powerful variable in predicting program implementation success. Subjects in this study were 107 preservice teachers trained in traditional and alternative programs in Taiwan. Instruments used included Chinese versions of Teacher Efficacy Scale, Special Needs Confidence Scale, and Participant Demographic Information Sheet. A series of four-way ANOVAs were utilized to investigate the effects of program membership, gender, work experience, and worked with children with disabilities on special needs confidence, personal efficacy and teaching efficacy of preservice teachers.; Findings and conclusions. The differences of program membership on special needs confidence, personal efficacy, and teaching efficacy were revealed. Preservice teachers trained in traditional programs presented higher special needs confidence but lower personal efficacy and teaching efficacy compared to preservice teachers trained in alternative programs. Female preservice teachers had higher personal efficacy than did male preservice teachers. Female preservice teachers with work experience in the education related field had highest perceptions of personal efficacy than did other subgroups. However, male preservice teachers without work experience had highest perception of special needs confidence than did other subgroups. Implications for theory, practice and recommendations for future research are included in this as well.