Investigation of the relationship between the inclusive education competence perceptions of teachers working in inclusion settings and their creative personality traits

While the success of inclusive education is deeply dependent on teachers' competency perceptions regarding complex and challenging tasks, the underlying personality dynamics that shape these perceptions have not been sufficiently understood. Based on this gap, this study aimed to elucidate the predictive power of creative personality traits on teachers' inclusive education competencies and their role in this relationship. To this end, in a quantitative survey model study conducted with the participation of 209 teachers, data were collected using the "Creative Personality Traits Scale" and the "Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices Scale", and analysed through correlation and hierarchical regression. The analyses revealed that teachers' creative personality structures are a significant and strong predictor of their competency perceptions in inclusion. Specifically, creative personality sub-dimensions such as "Goal Orientation" and "Intrinsic Motivation" most strongly explain competency perception, even after controlling for the effects of demographic and professional variables. In contrast, it was determined that factors like age and professional experience do not significantly affect competency perception, whereas having taken a special education course positively supports this perception. Consequently, it is understood that the competency of an effective inclusive education teacher is shaped not by a passive accumulation of experience, but by creative personality structures like the teacher's intrinsic motivation and goal-focus ability, along with specific professional training that supports these structures. This finding offers important practical implications for educational policies, indicating that teacher training programs should focus on developing creative and affective competencies in addition to technical knowledge.