Understanding Special Education Teachers' Narrated Self-Efficacy During Distance Learning

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Advocacy and Community Engagement in Special and Inclusive Education

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to a myriad of new challenges and exacerbated existing ones. Teachers were forced to provide instruction via distance learning with inadequate time to prepare. Guided by a hermeneutic approach, our qualitative study utilized narrative analysis and interpretation to examine teachers' lived experiences in the field during the pandemic. Understanding teachers' experiences during the global pandemic enables education researchers to address educational inequities in special education head-on and improve education for all students. Our research sought to understand how teachers’ time and space were displaced by the global pandemic and thus impacted their self-efficacy to provide instruction to students with disabilities in a virtual setting. Implications and factors to strengthen teachers' self-efficacy were considered.

Authors

• Jodie Ray-Marlowe, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College Arizona State University

• Germaine Koziarski, Arizona State University - Tempe

• Mirka E. Koro, Arizona State University