Teaching efficacy and referral of students to special education

Abstract

The primary purpose of the study was to determine the extent to which teaching efficacy, a motivational construct derived from Bandura's theory of self-efficacy, is related to the referring of students for special education services. Secondary purposes were to gather information on the validity of The Teacher Efficacy Scale (Gibson, 1983) and to obtain a better understanding of the construct of teaching efficacy, and how it is manifested in high and low efficacy teachers. A three-phase study was designed to investigate the problem. A survey of all first, second and third grade teachers in a mid-size urban school district in Virginia resulted in individual referral numbers and a volunteer sample of eighty-one teachers. After elimination of ten of those respondents, a second survey was conducted to gain a measure of efficacy and potentially related environmental variables. Scores from the second survey defined a sample for the interview phase of the study.

Findings suggest that high efficacy teachers refer fewer students to special education than do low efficacy teachers. Variables which appear to be related to a teacher's sense of efficacy include support from the administration, assistance I and personal support from the principal, type of school (high or low SES), successful experiences with low-achieving students, and a personal need to be successful with all students. Implications for building teachers' sense of efficacy indicate a two-pronqed change effort: assuring that teachers have the skills to be successful with a wide range of learning needs, and creating an environment which enables teachers to be decisive, independent professionals.