Development of Teacher Education Candidates’ Self-Efficacy for Culturally Responsive Teaching Through Extended Clinical Experiences

ABSTRACT Teacher self-efficacy is a construct that exerts a powerful influence on the behaviors of teachers. Yet, few studies have been conducted examining the impact of contextual structures within educator preparation programs on the development of general and domain-specific teaching efficacy. This study investigated the impact of an embedded internship in culturally- and linguistically-diverse elementary schools on self-efficacy for culturally responsive teaching. The results indicated candidates who participated in the internship demonstrated differences in self-efficacy for culturally responsive teaching that were significantly different in comparison to candidates who completed the traditional teacher education program. Implications are discussed as related considerations for teacher education programs as they seek to structure clinical experiences with focused opportunities for mastery experiences and relationship-building.