Conference Program

Hospital schooling and home instruction operate at the intersection of education and healthcare systems, where educational continuity represents a fundamental condition for ensuring the right to education for students undergoing medical treatment. In these contexts, teaching must contend with variable clinical schedules, frequent interruptions, and the need to maintain constant coordination with students’ schools of origin. Previous research has shown that working in such situations requires specific professional competencies and effective collaboration among professionals belonging to different institutional systems (Aquario, 2017; Benigno et al., 2017; Ferrari et al., 2022). However, empirical analyses of the professional and organizational conditions that shape the quality of educational responses in care contexts remain limited. Within this framework, teacher self-efficacy assumes particular relevance, as it influences the ability to manage unstable and complex educational situations (Bandura, 1997; Sharma et al., 2012) and can be interpreted as an indicator of the systemic coherence of educational action. This contribution presents an exploratory mixed-methods study with convergent data integration conducted with 47 teachers working in hospital schooling. The questionnaire investigated professional competencies, teacher self-efficacy through the Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices (TEIP) scale, and perceived professional development needs. In parallel, interviews were conducted with school principals responsible for coordinating hospital and home instruction services in order to explore the organizational conditions within which teaching activities take place. Quantitative analyses were conducted using non-parametric tests and bootstrapping procedures, complemented by linear regression models aimed at examining the association between declared competencies and levels of self-efficacy. Thematic qualitative analysis made it possible to relate perceptual data to the dynamics of interinstitutional coordination. The results show medium-to-high levels of perceived self-efficacy (median TEIP = 4.11; median ACP = 4.39 on a six-point scale). Declared professional competencies are significantly associated with self-efficacy, whereas age and professional experience do not emerge as determining factors. These findings suggest that perceptions of efficacy are not automatically linked to years of service but depend more strongly on the specificity of professional competencies and on the quality of the organizational context in which teachers operate. The interviews confirm the central role of coordination with students’ schools of origin and healthcare professionals, as well as the need to adapt educational planning to students’ health conditions, in line with findings from European and Italian studies (Fabre & Labrell, 2024; Faraoni & Melchiori, 2024).Overall, the findings indicate that self-efficacy in care contexts cannot be interpreted as an isolated individual trait but rather as the outcome of an interplay between professional competencies, organizational arrangements, and the quality of interprofessional relationships. Strengthening specialized professional training and establishing stable coordination models therefore does not represent a secondary intervention but a necessary condition for ensuring educational continuity and equity in learning opportunities for students experiencing illness. The study allows teacher self-efficacy to be interpreted as an expression of institutional responsibility in guaranteeing educational continuity, offering empirical evidence that may contribute to rethinking training, coordination, and organizational structures in hospital and home instruction services.