(PS5-92) General Education Teachers’ Attitudes and Behaviors Toward Special Education Students

Abstract Text:

Background: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act advocates for inclusive education to support students with disabilities. Despite aspiring to develop meaningful student-teacher relationships with all students, including those with disabilities, general education (GE) teachers must navigate student behaviors and personal mental health challenges. A meaningful yet minimally acknowledged aspect of student-teacher relationships is the influence of first impressions, despite the evidence that first impressions can influence perceptions of others (Human et al., 2013). Teachers may form first impressions of special education (SPED) students by reading their individualized education plans, which commonly describe deficits and shortcomings. Challenging classroom behaviors can further affect teacher’s impressions of students. Additionally, teachers often experience stress and burnout, inhibiting their ability to perform optimally (Aboagye et al., 2020; Capone & Petrillo, 2020). The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of teacher burnout and the type of language describing SPED students on GE teachers’ attitudes and behaviors towards SPED students.

Methods: GE teachers (N=57) with experience teaching inclusive classrooms in K-12 schools were recruited through social media and email. Participants completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory for Educators (MBI-ES; Maslach et al., 1996) and other measures. Participants then read two vignettes describing SPED students – one with deficit-based language and the other with strength-based language (presented in random order). Both vignettes presented the same facts, only the manner of describing them was manipulated. After each vignette, participants described their perceptions of and hypothetical actions towards students’ problematic behaviors.

Results: After reading strength-based language vignette, teachers were more likely to attribute problematic behaviors to external factors than to internal factors (F(1, 46) = 14.66, p < .001, ηp2 = .24). Furthermore, compared to deficit-based language, after reading strength-based language participants showed a greater difference between internal and external attributions of students’ problematic behaviors, (F(1, 44) = 9.30, p = .004, ηp2 = .18) and were less likely to use passive approaches to handling problems (F(1, 42) = 9.43, p = .004, ηp2 = .18). Participants’ own mental health effects were mitigated by reading strength-based language vignettes; thus, teachers endorsing a higher MBI-ES depersonalization score were more likely to take directive approaches compared to passive approaches when addressing problematic behaviors (F(1, 43) = 6.35, p = .016, ηp2 = .13).

Conclusion: Teachers reading descriptions of students that focus on their deficits may form negative impressions of them and act suboptimally. Our results suggest that merely adjusting the language describing the student can positively influence teachers’ perceptions of and response to student’s problematic behaviors. The results suggest pathways to promote teachers’ wellbeing, positive educational environment for all students, and development of positive student-teacher relationships.