ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
This article is part of the Research TopicScales Validation in the Context of Inclusive EducationView all 13 articles
The Attitudes toward Inclusion (AIS) and Teachers' Efficacy in Inclusive Practices (TEIP / TEIP-SF) Scales: Psychometric Properties across Swiss In-Service, Pre-Service, and Special Education Teachers
Provisionally accepted
Sergej Wüthrich*
Caroline Sahli Lozano- Pädagogische Hochschule Bern, Bern, Switzerland
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Introduction: This study examined the psychometric properties of two widely used scales measuring teacher attitudes (Attitudes to Inclusion Scale; AIS) and self-efficacy (Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices Scale; TEIP and its short form TEIP-SF) toward inclusive education. Methods: Using a sample of Swiss teachers (N = 1,546), including pre-service regular teachers (n = 147), in-service regular teachers (n = 1,168), and special education teachers (n = 231), we applied confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM) to assess factor structure and assessed reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity of the scales. Results: Results indicated that ESEM models outperformed CFA models. While the AIS and TEIP-SF demonstrated strong psychometric properties across all evaluation criteria, the TEIP showed limitations in convergent and discriminant validity, particularly in its collaboration factor. Alignment procedures demonstrated approximate measurement invariance of all scales across teacher groups. Latent mean comparisons revealed that special education teachers reported significantly more positive attitudes (d = 0.74-0.88) and higher self-efficacy in instruction (d = 0.69-0.72) and collaboration (d = 0.74-0.78) compared to in-service regular teachers. Pre-service teachers also showed more positive beliefs (d = 0.44) but lower self-efficacy in behavior management (d = 0.22-0.25) than in-service teachers. Discussion: The findings support the use of the AIS and TEIP-SF for assessing attitudes and self-efficacy toward inclusion across different teacher groups and support domain-specificity of teacher self-efficacy.
Keywords: Inclusive education, attitudes, self-efficacy, Pre- and in-service teachers, specialeducation teachers, Measurement invariance, Psychometric scale development and validation
Received: 20 Nov 2024; Accepted: 28 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wüthrich and Sahli Lozano. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sergej Wüthrich, sergej.wuethrich@phbern.ch
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