General Education Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Attitudes Towards Adopting Evidence-Based Practices and Its Relations With Individual and Contextual Factors

Abstract The implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs) does not always lead to successful outcomes due to various contextual factors. The Evidence-Based Practice Attitude Scale (EBPAS; Aarons, 2004) assesses implementers’ attitudes towards adopting EBPs (ATE), helping to understand the discrepancy between planned and implemented EBPs. Despite the growing implementation of school-based EBPs, the EBPAS has seldom been applied to general education teachers. This study aimed to validate the EBPAS for primary school teachers in Singapore using content validity and confirmatory factor analysis and to examine how the contextual characteristics influence ATE. A total of 170 teachers from 10 schools participated anonymously in an online survey. Confirmatory factor analysis results supported the four-factor structure of the EBPAS. All subscales showed excellent to acceptable internal consistency, with Divergence being the lowest. Teachers with higher educational attainment were more likely to be open to adopting EBPs. Similarly, teachers’ perceived school leadership support was significantly associated with their ATE. However, neither years of teaching experience, years of supporting students with special educational needs, nor teacher efficacy in inclusive practices significantly predicted ATE. The study highlights the need for further refinement, particularly of the Divergence subscale, through the exploration of alternative constructs and validation with larger samples.