Teachers' Beliefs about Students with Special Needs (Poster 11)

• In Event: A Global Perspective of the Landscape of Research on Teachers’ Beliefs

Abstract

Objective
The guiding question for this research was: What do teachers believe about students with special needs? In this qualitative narrative literature review, we discuss findings from empirical studies on teachers’ beliefs about students with special needs (SSN).

Perspectives
Teachers’ beliefs are links between a person or idea with another that are held to be true by the believer (Pajares, 1992) and include attitudes, feelings, knowledge, and emotions. This conceptual framework for understanding teachers’ beliefs draws on social cognition theory (Bandura, 1977) and integrates findings about teachers’ beliefs about SSN in a variety of physical and ideological contexts: in specific student groups, within student and teacher learning, within several domains, and relative to inclusive policies and practices.

Methods
I adopted a broad view of beliefs and sought out empirical studies using terms such as attitudes, sentiments, and emotions, as well as multiple terms related to students with special needs. I first conducted a worldwide systematic search of relevant literature using educational research databases and then identified characteristics of the literature such as prevalent research questions, mediators, instruments, and findings. Finally, I formed themes concerning teachers’ beliefs about SSN by integrating across the body of literature. Specific beliefs such as teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching SSN were searched individually, as were specific student disability labels (e.g., autism), to create a comprehensive set of studies about teachers’ beliefs about SSN. Studies considered included empirical studies in the literature on teachers’ beliefs on SSN published in peer-reviewed journal articles in English.

Findings
There was a great deal of literature on inclusive education policies. In general, teachers seemed at least neutral or slightly favorably disposed to teaching SSN in inclusive educational settings. Pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs for inclusive educational settings seemed higher than in-service teachers’ on the whole, but the pre-service teachers may question the feasibility of inclusive education (e.g., Beneke et al., 2020) especially for specific groups of students (Wang et al., 2015). Studies varied in the extent that they included pertinent variables, whether or not teachers were special education teachers or taught in different settings like resource rooms or co-teaching arrangements. There were differences between the beliefs of general education teachers and special education teachers (e.g., Graham et al., 2024). Overall, teacher knowledge building opportunities such as pre-service education, stand-alone courses and professional development seemed to contribute to more positive attitudes toward students with special needs (e.g., Porta et al., 2022). In-service professional development was related to increased knowledge about SSN (e.g., Sermier Dessemontet et al., 2014).

Significance
Because teachers’ beliefs influence their behavior, these findings are relevant for teachers themselves, educational administrators, teacher educators and policy makers at all levels. Teachers’ beliefs matter, undergirding interactions with SSN, including critical decisions regarding whether or how students receive special services, physical and programmatic placement in education settings, and how receptive teachers are in obtaining and using knowledge and practices.

Author

• Mary Theresa Kiely, Queens College - CUNY