The reality of reality shock for inclusion: How does teacher attitude, perceived knowledge and self-efficacy in relation to effective inclusion in the classroom change from the pre-service to novice teacher year?

There is little empirical attention in the literature to how beginning teacher perceptions in relation to inclusion change as they progress from the pre-service to novice teacher year. This paper reports on a panel study of a cohort of pre-service teachers in the Republic of Ireland, which tracks their transition to the novice teacher year using a new scale. Analysis of the data indicates that this transition results in a significant drop in attitude, perceived knowledge and self-efficacy in relation to inclusion. •There is little empirical evidence about how reality shock operates in teacher education for inclusion.•We measured how attitude, knowledge and self-efficacy change between the pre-service and novice teacher year.•There was a significant and large drop in these in our sample of 122 teachers.