The Special Education Teachers’ Perception of Professional Development and the Alignment to Inclusive Teaching Practices

Abstract

ABSTRACT Special education inclusion teachers experience barriers that stem from self-efficacy, professional development, role conflict, special education compliance, and the necessity of determining the needs of students using Specially Designed Instruction, while serviced in special education within an inclusion setting (Woodcock & Reupert, 2013, Friend, 2014 & Bandura, 1997). Lack of content knowledge is conversely a hurdle for special educators who serviced middle and secondary schools because they find themselves not being content experts for their assigned classes (Dieker & Hines, 2013). The setting consists of a large urban public school district in Texas that educates approximately 200,000 students with more than 15,000 services in special education (Holmes, 2018). Elementary and secondary teachers who were certified in the state of Texas as special education teachers supporting students serviced in special education within the inclusive setting of a large urban district in the state of Texas were purposely chosen as the sample for this study. The Professional Development Perception Survey was delivered through electronic mail to an approved list of elementary and secondary special education teachers who service students with disabilities within the inclusion setting. Through qualitative analyses, the data was collected using the Smart Survey tool. In addition, the survey consists of demographic questions, Likert 5-Point Scale and open-ended questions using the Smart Survey tool. Conclusions are determined by confirmation of the barriers that stem from self-efficacy, professional development opportunities, role conflict, special education compliance, and determining the need of students serviced using Specially Designed Instruction. Keywords: professional development, specially designed instruction (SDI), self-efficacy, special education, inclusive setting