The Teacher Self-Efficacy, Personal Compatibility, and Active Involvement in Instruction of High School General and Special Education Co-teachers: An Actor-Partner Interdependence Model

Abstract

Co-teaching is a common service delivery model that high schools employ to provide students with disabilities (SWD) access to high quality content instruction and special education services (Magiera & Zigmond, 2005; Murawski, 2006; Zigmond & Magiera, 2001) by combining the unique skill sets of general and special educators. The purpose of the current study was to examine co-teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, perceptions of personal compatibility, and active involvement in instruction, and to examine TSE and personal compatibility as potential predictors of co-teachers’ active involvement in instruction. Data gathered from 56 high school co-teaching dyads were analyzed using Actor-Partner Interdependence Modeling (APIM) to determine the relationships among TSE, personal compatibility, and active involvement in instruction. Results revealed that general and special education co-teachers did not differ on TSE and personal compatibility, but general education co-teachers did report significantly higher active involvement in instruction than special education co-teachers. Results of APIM analyses revealed that TSE was predictive of active involvement in instruction for general education co-teachers, but not for special education co-teachers. Personal compatibility was not predictive of active involvement in instruction for general education co-teachers or special education co-teachers. Finally, personal compatibility was not found to have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between TSE and active involvement in instruction. Results are discussed and suggestions for future research and implications for practice are provided.