Investigating the Relationship Between Preservice Special Education Teachers' Attitudes Toward Professional Collaboration and Teaching Competencies

Introduction: Collaboration is a positive and mutually committed process that involves team members working together, pooling resources, and sharing an environment. The process of collaboration among teachers also leads to the improvement of professional practice and the quality of learning outcomes. Teachers in a collaborative environment know that there are other experts from whom they can get support in the educational process. This situation has a positive effect on their attitudes towards the teaching profession, and positive attitudes enhance their professional competence by increasing their motivation to learn and teach. This study aimed to contribute to the literature by clarifying the relationship between attitudes towards collaborative working skills and teachers' competencies in the field of special education.Method: The research was designed in relational survey method, one of the quantitative research types. A total of 253 students who were enrolled in the undergraduate special education program at the universities and took the teaching practice course for at least one semester participated in the study. The data of the study were collected through the "Attitude Scale towards Professional Collaboration among Teachers" and "Ohio Teacher Competence Scale". Before analyzing the data, the assumption of normality was checked. Then, statistical analyses (correlation, regression, one-way analysis of variance, independent groups t-test) were performed. Reliability coefficients were also calculated for each scale.Results: As a result of the analyses, a high positive correlation was found between pre-service teachers' attitudes towards professional collaboration and teacher competencies and their subdimensions. In addition, it was found that pre-service teachers' attitudes toward professional collaboration positively predicted teacher competencies and their subdimensions. Finally, the attitudes towards collaboration and teacher competencies of pre-service teachers working with students with severe and multiple disabilities in teaching practice were higher than those of pre-service teachers working with other disability groups.Discussion: The results of this study suggest that pre-service special education teachers' positive attitudes towards professional collaboration significantly increase their levels of teacher efficacy, and that working with different disability groups affects pre-service teachers' professional development in different ways. This highlights the importance of teacher education programs to promote approaches that are sensitive to diversity and diverse learning needs.