The present study looked into the various qualification factors that special education teachers must equipped with, and examined the differences between the level of expectations the teachers had about their own qualifications and their actual accompl...
The present study looked into the various qualification factors that special education teachers must equipped with, and examined the differences between the level of expectations the teachers had about their own qualifications and their actual accomplishments. The variables, dependent on which the differences were examined, were gender, experiences of special education, certifications, kinds of school they were working for. A questionnaire survey was conducted to 206 special education teachers. The results of this survey are as follows:
First, the expectations that special education teachers have about their own qualifications were very high in all the sub-categories - personality traits, expertise on 1 special education, teaching skills, attainments, and attitude toward a teaching job.
Second, it was demonstrated that special education teachers thought highly of their qualifications so that the scores were above the means. In all the sub-categories of teacher qualifications, they evaluated themselves slightly above the mean score of 3.0. This tendency was higher in female than male teachers; in the bearers of a special certificate than in those of both special and general certificates; in the teachers of special schools than those of general schools with classes for special education. The teachers with experiences more than 8 years evaluated their qualifications more highly than those with experiences less than 4 years.
Third, the level of self-expectations was higher than the results of self-evaluations regarding the qualifications of special teachers, in the overall qualifications as well as the various sub-categories of teacher qualifications.
Several recommendations were made based on the above results:
First, it is suggested that studies on the standardized tools to evaluate qualifications of special education teachers be conducted.
Second, the significance of self-evaluations can be emphasized only when outside-assessments are supplemented to them because the expertise of special education teachers can't be determined with only self-evaluations. Thus, self-evaluations should be used by the teachers as a means to reflect, or improve their own qualifications.